174 Sermon Illustrations on Homosexuality

174 illustrations Page 3 of 4

This subject addresses the biblical and moral perspectives on homosexuality within Christian preaching, often exploring themes of sin, redemption, and church discipline. Illustrations commonly use legal, pastoral, and personal narratives to discuss scriptural teachings and the tension between cultural acceptance and biblical authority (Romans 1:26-27). The topic engages with issues of identity, transformation, and the church's response to those who identify as homosexual (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

Oh, Canada! - Marriage Gets A New Definition

The first line of yesterday’s Associated Press story says it all: “An appeals court ruled that Canada’s ban on homosexual marriage was unconstitutional, and hours later two Canadian men tied the knot in the country’s first legal same-sex wedding.”

This is the beginning of a vast social experiment initiated by judicial fiat. Canadian Justice Harry LaForme wrote in his opinion, “The restriction against same-sex marriage is an offence to the dignity of lesbians and gays because it limits the range of relationship options available to them. The result is they are denied the autonomy to choose whether they wish to marry. This in turn conveys the ominous message that they are unworthy of marriage.”

The argument, you see, is that to deny homosexuals marriage is manifestly unfair. But it’s not unfair. Gays and lesbians are not unworthy of marriage; they are INCAPABLE of marriage.

In his wonderful new book, WHAT WE CAN’T NOT KNOW, University of Texas professor J. Budziszewski states that the purpose of marriage is procreation — the begetting and rearing of children. The future of the human race depends on marriage understood as the union of one man and one woman. Relationships between two men or two women are by their very nature sterile and, thus, not marriage.

Budziszewski writes, “To call procreation the purpose of marriage is not arbitrary; alone among all forms of human union, the union of the sexes produces children..... A legislature [or a court] can no more turn sodomitical unions into marriages than it can turn dogs into cats; it can only UNRAVEL the institution of marriage by sowing confusion about its purpose.”

And that confusion is growing. Most people oppose or support homosexual marriage for sentimental reasons. Some can’t stomach the idea at all, but they don’t know why except for a feeling that it’s wrong. Others have friends, neighbors, co-workers, or family members who are involved in long-term homosexual relationships. They enjoy the couple’s company; they know that they’re in love. Since marriage is all about love, they reason, same-sex couples should be permitted to marry.

Photos of happy gay and lesbian couples getting married as a result of this ruling only reinforce this sentiment. The negative sociological consequences won’t be fully felt for years — when, by then, it will be too late.

Christians must not fall into that sentiment trap, nor can we simply quote Scripture to deny homosexual unions. We need well reasoned arguments based on a biblical worldview. And BreakPoint is committed to helping you make those arguments cogently and winsomely. Call us here (1-877-3-CALLBP); we’ll offer you some good resources.

J. Budziszewski is right: We and our neighbors can’t not know that marriage by nature is about procreation. And only a man and a woman together — two becoming one flesh — can procreate. Same-sex relationships can never be marriage.

A second issue is that those who espouse sexual liberation have defined the issues in the debate. I’ll address this on our next broadcast, so stay tuned.

What has occurred in Canada adds fuel to the same-sex marriage movement. Now more than ever, Christians must make a well reasoned defense of marriage.

For further information:

“CANADIAN COURT RULES BAN ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGES UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, June 11, 2003. (Free registration required.)

Tom Cohen, “APPEALS COURT DECLARES CANADA’S BAN ON GAY MARRIAGE UNCONSTITUTIONAL,” TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE, June 10, 2003.

Ted Olsen, “WEBLOG: ONTARIO COURT THROWS OUT MARRIAGE DEFINITION,” CHRISTIANITY TODAY, June 11, 2003.

Robert p. George, “RICK SANTORUM IS RIGHT,” NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, May 27, 2003.

J. Budziszewski, “‘LITTLE PLATOONS’: GOD’S DESIGN FOR OUR RELATIONSHIPS,” BREAKPOINT WORLDVIEW, March 2003.

J. Budziszewski, WHAT WE CAN’T NOT KNOW: A GUIDE (Spence, 2003).

BreakPoint Commentary No. 030506, “AN UNSTABLE BALANCE: WANTING IT BOTH WAYS.” (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

Roberto Rivera, “NO OTHER KIND: FOREGOING FULFILLMENT,” BREAKPOINT ONLINE, October 22, 22.

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Changing the Rules - the Sexual Revolution and Sexual Attitudes

Mark 7:18

The ruling earlier this week by a Canadian appeals court that legalized same-sex marriages in Canada is only the beginning. In one sense, it’s no surprise: Public acceptance of homosexual behavior has been growing. A majority of Canadians favor the court’s decision. Well, can’t happen here, you say. But indeed it can, if public pressure demands it. And support for homosexual rights is growing in the United States just like Canada.

Between 1973 and 1993, the percentage of Americans saying that homosexual relations were “always wrong” ranged between 66 and 70 percent.

But by 2000, only 54 percent said that these relations were “always wrong.” And a 2001 Gallup poll showed the scales have tipped the other way. A majority today — 54 percent — characterized homosexuality as an acceptable “alternative lifestyle.” And just this year Gallup discovered that 62 percent of Americans believe homosexual relations should be legalized.

While there are several reasons for our changing attitudes, the most important is the legacy of the sexual revolution of the sixties and seventies. That phrase brings to mind terms like PROMISCUITY and SEXUAL EXPERIMENTATION. But these are only symptoms. The sexual revolution’s most profound impact wasn’t on our practices but on our attitudes.

Prior to the revolution, sex was not regarded as an end in itself. Rather, it was most often understood as serving two vital goals: procreation and what Christians call the “unitive” purpose, strengthening the bonds of marital love. It was against these ends that the morality or immorality of any practice was measured.

The sexual revolution, however, denied that sex was ordered to some higher and nobler end. Sex became a merely physical and biological act, an expression of our animal — not divine — nature. The old morality was dismissed as “unnatural,” and sex became recreation.

In this worldview, the pleasure derived from a consensual sexual act is all the “justification” needed. And by now, even people whose own conduct conforms to the traditional morality have internalized this attitude. Thus, as the polls show us, they are unwilling to deny anyone’s right to recreation. And if sex is merely that, why would you not grant it to gays? There’s no basis to consider homosexual sex or, for that matter, sex outside marriage as wrong.

And because the terms of the debate have changed, gay activists are now winning the political battle, as we can see so clearly in the Canadian decision. Their right to recreation will quite logically be a protected “civil right.” The only way to stop this — to defend marriage — is to reject the view of sex that we inherited from the sexual revolution.

It’s our job to teach people that sex is not an end in itself — it is more than recreation. It is an act infused with great moral significance.

Now, I admit it is going to be tough to teach this to people who have come to think of sex on any terms as their civil right — an attitude affirmed in court decisions in the United States as well as Canada — but teach it we must, for the alternative is social chaos.

For further information:

BreakPoint Commentary No. 030612, “OH, CANADA!: MARRIAGE GETS A NEW DEFINITION.”

The SPRING 2003 ISSUE of INSIGHT, the newsletter of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, includes findings from a study revealing America’s attitudes toward sexuality. (Free ADOBE ACROBAT READER required.)

Frank Newport, “AMERICAN ATTITUDES TOWARD HOMOSEXUALITY CONTINUE TO BECOME MORE TOLERANT,” GALLUP NEWS SERVICE, June 4, 2001.

Roberto Rivera, “CHANGING HEARTS: DEALING WITH A NEW CONTEXT,” BREAKPOINT ONLINE, May 1, 2003.

Robert p. George, “RICK SANTORUM IS RIGHT,” NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, May 27, 2003.

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Something's Afoul In New Hampshire

Jude 1:7

A kiss from the priest's “life partner” and wild cheers from a crowd of wayward New Hampshire Episcopalians accompanied the June 7 announcement that the church there had elected its first openly homosexual bishop.

Bishop-elect Gene Robinson, who swears that his sexuality has no effect on his abilities as a bishop, swelled with pride as his lifestyle was lauded by a number of “super-Christians” (those who have ascended beyond the ignorance of the remaining millions who still regard homosexuality as sin).

After all, Robinson -- I will not refer to him as “Reverend” because the term denotes holiness -- said on NBC's “Today” show the other day that it grieves the Lord Jesus Christ when Christians do not accept the homosexual lifestyles of their “brethren.”

Christianity Today reported that Robinson said he and his flock would show the world “how to be a Christian community.” He also said that the masses would come to see what the Bible really says about homosexuality.

And what does the Bible say about homosexuality, according to Robinson? Well, it's simple really. The Bible, he believes, doesn't address the modern homosexual lifestyle.

“I think we have to push right through those seven brief biblical references or what seem to be references to homosexuality. ... What we are talking about today in terms of faithful, monogamous, lifetime-intention relationships between people of the same gender or homosexuality in general is just not addressed in the Bible,” Robinson told the London Daily Telegraph.

If what the Bible says runs contrary to your lifestyle, in other words, just ignore it. Robinson, of course, would say that he is not ignoring the passages, but merely interpreting them in their proper context.

Douglas Theuner, the outgoing bishop, agreed with Robinson. The Bible, he said, has references which refer “to homosexual behavior” between heterosexual people, “not necessarily to homosexuality, homosexual orientation or homosexual life.”

By the way, I had to read the paper from London before I was able to find these nonsensical quotes. American papers didn't carry them.

This type of biblical interpretation is proof that a white collar in the Episcopal Church does not a theologian make. There are multiple prohibitions against homosexuality in the Bible, all clear-cut and rock solid.

The Apostle Paul's commentary on homosexual practices in Romans 1:25-26 is but one example. The apostle wrote that both men and women, as a result of willfully ignoring God, had “exchanged” or “changed” their natural sexual desires for what was unnatural. Men lusted after men and women lusted after women.

Robinson believes that Paul was lamenting that some heterosexual people had fallen into homosexual behavior. The Greek word that Paul used for exchanged or changed, “metallasso,” simply does not support his claim. The word means to change conditions, or to convert from one state to another.

Apply the meaning of the word and it is clear that men and women were not created for homosexual lifestyles, monogamous or otherwise. Each gender was created with natural desires, and homosexuality is symptomatic of the disease that infects all human beings -- sin. The apostle also wrote that because of their behavior, God eventually gave them over to their lifestyles. The lifestyle of homosexuality was the punishment for the behavior.

There are homosexual activists who claim that Southern Baptists are committing acts of “spiritual violence” for refusing to legitimize homosexuality. These dissenters from biblical truth apparently believe what Robinson said on the Today show.

They also seem to agree that Robinson is speaking for God when he says that we who disagree should listen to “God's voice instead of our own egos” in this discussion about homosexuality. God has already spoken on the subject of homosexuality in his written Word. We have listened to and heeded His voice. Any voice the bishop's followers hear that affirms the homosexual lifestyle will not be God's contradicting His Word. It will be that of their own flesh, doing what the flesh does so well -- convincing itself that its lusts and desires are healthy, normal and, worse, implanted by God.

Robinson's claims make him a false teacher. He is a false teacher because he teaches a different Christian doctrine than the body of Christ, the church. He preaches a different Christ, a Christ who demands no change of those who claim to follow Him.

The bishop's election this year, after two previous attempts at the office in 1998 and 1999, still must be ratified during the denomination's general convention in Minneapolis in late July. The stage is set for a battle royal between the bishop's followers and conservative Anglicans, who in 1998 declared homosexuality “incompatible with Scripture.”

For sure, the 75 million Anglicans in 164 different countries and the 2.5 million Episcopalians in the United States will be watching to see the outcome.

Thankfully, some Episcopalians are already demanding that the bishop not be installed. It will, one South Carolina bishop said, bring about a “radical change in church doctrine.” Should the vote go in Robinson's favor in July, the same Scriptures that declare homosexuality immoral and sinful declare what action all Bible-believing Anglicans should take.

Paul was clear in 1 Corinthians 5 that believers should not associate with those who refuse to submit to the authority of Christ:

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with immoral people;

I did not mean the immoral people of this world, or with the

covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters; for then you would

have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to

associate with any so-called brother if he should be an immoral

person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard,

or a swindler -- not even to eat with such a one.

That being said, I do not hate homosexuals. The Southern Baptist Convention does not promote hatred of homosexuals. Do not, however, expect Southern Baptists to validate sin and bring dishonor to Christ in doing so. The message of hope throughout the New Testament is that Christ is in the business of making new creatures. That was evidenced when Paul wrote in a later chapter that whatever the sin, including homosexuality, God could forgive it:

And such were some of you: but you were washed, but you were

sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus

Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.”

Can a homosexual become a follower of Christ? Certainly. Can a follower of Christ be a homosexual? If Christ has cleansed the believer, certainly not.

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Tomlin is news director at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

Homosexuality Is Not A Civil Right

Jude 1:7

The Declaration of Independence declares that all people are guaranteed God-endowed inalienable rights, among them being life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. For that purpose — safeguarding rights — governments are instituted.

Those rights are natural, attached to people solely because people are created in God’s image. There are other rights that are not endowed by God but by the civil authority. Those rights are relative and alienable — that is, conditional — and are based on one’s citizenship.

When protecting one’s inalienable and civil rights, the government must discern between liberty and license. This requires that rights attach to persons because of their humanity, not because of their behaviors, and certainly not those behaviors that Western legal and moral tradition has regarded as inimical to the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,” as stated in the Declaration. Yet, today some advocate granting “rights” to behaviors hostile to the most fundamental forms of self-government — family, church, and community. This is especially the case with homosexual activists, who ironically seek to hijack the moral capital of the civil rights movement.

Essential to the homosexual agenda is the idea that homosexuals are fighting for basic civil rights denied them by an oppressive society. This argument strikes a sympathetic chord among many Americans, whose decency and sense of fair play demand that all people be treated fairly. However, a closer look at the truth about homosexuality and the political goals of the “gay rights” movement shows that homosexuals are not an oppressed minority, that opposition to special legal protection for homosexuality is not bigotry, and that extending such protection is dangerous to individuals and society.

Contrary to their claims of “discrimination,” there is no effort to deny homosexuals the same rights guaranteed to all Americans. The truth is that homosexuals have the same rights, with the same restrictions, as everyone else. Homosexuals have the right to free speech, freedom of religion, due process under the law, the right to engage in commerce, to enter into contracts, own property, vote, along with a host of other rights. In fact, an ACLU handbook lists dozens of rights homosexuals already enjoy.1 Most people agree that homosexual activists’ claim of “discrimination” rings hollow. In a 1999 Wirthlin Worldwide poll of more than 1,000 Americans, 75 percent of the respondents said that “homosexuals have not suffered the same kind of legal injustice (such as not being able to vote, get an education, or earn a living) as black Americans have.2 In this country all citizens are guaranteed equal protection under the law. What homosexuals are actually calling for is not equal protection but special protection.

Homosexuals are restricted from serving in the military as are a dozen other groups, such as older people, young people, single parents, and others who detract from the military’s mission. However, military service is not a right but a privilege and a duty for some. That privilege is conditional upon one’s behavior; homosexual behavior is discordant with the health, safety, cohesion, and morale of the military.

NOT A TRUE MINORITY

The notion that homosexuals are a true minority group is false. Homosexuals do not meet the three criteria that characterize minority groups that have been accorded special legal protections.

ECONOMIC DEPRIVATION. As a group, homosexuals are among the most advantaged people in the country. Though different research and marketing firms use different homosexual population numbers, ranging from the actual one percent to an inflated 10 percent or more, research shows that homosexuals fare at least as well or better than the rest of the country.

• They have median annual household incomes of $45,776. Nationally, the

median income for a family household is $35,492, according to 1996

figures from the U.S. Census.3 According to a study by researcher

Greenfield Online in conjunction with homosexual marketing consultant

Spare Parts, homosexuals’ annual household income is $57,300. Georgia

Tech Graphics Visualization & Usability Center found that homosexuals’

annual income is $52,000.4 Market researcher Overlooked Opinions found

that male homosexuals reported household incomes of more than $50,000 in

1990, compared to the national average of about $37,000.5

• As for individual incomes, heterosexual men earn $29,162 while

homosexual men earn $28,618 a year.6 Another 1997 study of “gay”

newspaper readers conducted by Simmons Market Research Bureau in New

York found that the average homosexual’s income was $47,000.7

• According to the Miami Daily Business Review, homosexuals have

”extraordinarily high disposable income, and are a very attractive

target for advertisers.” The Review reports Simmons Market Research

Bureau findings that 21 percent of homosexuals have household incomes

exceeding $100,000; 31 percent have personal income exceeding $65,000;

61 percent have a four-year college degree, compared with the U.S. mean

of 18 percent; 17 percent hold masters degrees, compared with 4 percent

of the U.S. population as a whole.8

POLITICAL POWERLESSNESS.

Homosexuals display political power far beyond their numbers, despite constituting only about 1 percent of the population.9 “The Gay vote is large, powerful, and able to swing a closely contested election,” proclaimed National Gay & Lesbian Task Force spokesperson David Elliot at a National Press Club event in September 2000.10

• The top eleven homosexual activist groups spent approximately $36

million in 1999 fighting for homosexual “rights,” according to the

Washington Blade.11 That does not include the over $1 million budget of

the homosexual legal arm of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Homosexual groups across the country reported a total budget of nearly

$100 million in 1999, according to a Gill Foundation study.

• Homosexual political action committees contributed almost $800,000 to

federal candidates. Individual Democratic “gay” activists also raised

approximately $5 million for the Democratic National Committee. The

Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest homosexual advocacy

organization, has a $21 million annual budget12 and boasts on its

website that their political action committee also spent more than $2.5

million in the 2000 election. Both President Clinton and Vice-President

Gore have courted the homosexual vote at political fund raisers.

Openly homosexual politicians hold various high public offices in

Congress, including Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), Rep. Barney Frank

(D-Mass.), and Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.). According to the Blade, 118

openly “gay” candidates ran for federal, state and local office on in

the 2000 elections — 43 of them incumbents.

• Homosexuals were appointed by the Clinton administration to key

positions in the federal government. Among sub-cabinet appointments are:

Bruce Lehman, Commissioner, U.S. Patent Office; Nan Hunter, Deputy

General Counsel, Department of Health and Human Services; Roberta

Achtenberg, Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing, Housing and Urban

Development; Victor Zonana, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public

Affairs/Media, Department of Health and Human Services; Julian Potter,

White House Gay Liaison; and Fred Hochberg, U.S. Small Business

Administration Deputy Administrator.

• In addition, homosexuals enjoy support from every major news

organization, whose coverage long ago crossed the line into outright

advocacy of homosexual causes. More than six hundred journalists

attended a conference of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists

Association in September 2000. Homosexuals and their allies such as CNN

producer Rose Arce and NBC Nightly News producer Barbara Raab hold

influential media positions.13

IMMUTABLE CHARACTERISTICS. Minority groups share immutable, benign, non-behavioral characteristics such as race, ethnicity, disability or national origin. Homosexuals are the only group to claim minority status based on behavior. There is no reliable scientific evidence which shows that homosexual behavior is biological in origin. A comprehensive examination of genetic claims for homosexuality in the Archives of General Psychiatry (March, 1993) concludes, “There is no evidence at present to substantiate a biologic theory.”14

• In a critique of studies that claim to prove a “gay gene,” homosexual

activist and author Edward Stein, Ph.D., said, “Genes in themselves

cannot directly specify any behavior or psychological phenomenon. ...

The terms ‘gay gene’ and ‘homosexual gene’ are, therefore, without

meaning.... No one has ... presented evidence in support of such a

simple and direct link between genes and sexual orientation.”15

Perhaps the biggest indicator that homosexuality is not genetic or

immutable is the existence of thousands of people who have come out of

the homosexuality.

Rather than being considered a minority group, homosexuals are more accurately described as a special interest group. But even that description may be overly generous. Unlike lobbies such as the Association of Trial Lawyers of America and the Realtors Political Action Committee, which represent legitimate concerns, homosexuals are pressing for government-enforced approval of activities that have been condemned in all successful cultures as immoral, unhealthy, and destructive to individuals and societies.

Using civil rights arguments is an exploitation of good people’s sympathy. A 1987 article in the homosexual magazine Guide outlined the strategy homosexuals should use to gain special protection — a strategy even more effective today, given a complicit media.

In any campaign to win over the public, gays must be cast as victims in

need of protection so that straights will be inclined by reflex to

assume the role of protector..... Our campaign should not demand

direct support for homosexual practices, but should instead take

anti-discrimination as its theme.16

Indeed, homosexual activists actively avoid public discussion of homosexual behavior. In the 1989 book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Hatred and Fear of Homosexuals in the 90s, a blueprint for homosexual political power, the authors warn that:

The public should not be shocked and repelled by premature exposure to

homosexual behavior itself.17

Homosexual activists realize that when people become aware of the common homosexual practices18 (not to mention the more debased acts), they will see that these behaviors do not merit special protection in the laws.

Granting special legal protection to homosexual behavior would also harm civil society by undermining the institutions of marriage and family. Throughout the world, marriage and family are held in highest esteem. They are recognized as the foundations for civil society. The value and benefit of marriage and family as the genesis of each new generation are reflected in our nation’s laws, which afford them special privileges and immunities. If homosexual behavior were to receive the same status, marriage and family would be reduced to just one of a number of lifestyle choices. The effort to redefine the family is really an effort to destroy the common definition and has no logical stopping point. If marriage no longer means the union of a man and a woman, then why not “marry” three men, or two men and a woman? Putting homosexual behavior on a par with marriage and family sends the wrong message to a nation already overburdened with family breakdown and its attendant pathologies.

Granting special legal protection to homosexuals would also take away rights from others.

• Parents could lose the right to protect their children from

school-endorsed exposure to homosexuality and other various “sexual

orientations.”

• Private religious and civic groups would no longer be able to exclude

homosexuals. For instance, the Boy Scouts of America were sued and

brought before the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2000 to explain why they

had “violated” New Jersey’s law against discrimination against

homosexuals. Though the Scouts won by a razor-thin 5 to 4 margin, the

writing on the wall was clear: homosexual activists have pressured local

and state governments into giving homosexuals special legal protection

instead of securing the inalienable religious and associational rights

of private organizations. That is tyranny masquerading as “tolerance.”

Landlords, even those in duplexes and family-centered complexes, could

be forced to rent to open homosexuals.

• Good people of conscience are losing the right to disagree. For example,

two Madison, Wisconsin women were forced to pay fines, attend a

political re-education class, write a letter of apology and informed

that they were to be monitored by a public agency for two years because

they declined to room with a lesbian.19

Opposition to extending special protection to homosexuals is not based on ignorance or bigotry, as homosexuals often claim. It is based on informed judgment about homosexual behavior and the political agenda of homosexual activists. If pro-family concerns were not based on fact, logic and careful thought, they might indeed be guilty of prejudice. But homosexuality is not a civil right. It is a behavior that people can and have changed.

***

Daniel S. Garcia is a former policy analyst for Family Research Council and is currently working on Capitol Hill. Robert E. Regier is a policy analyst in the cultural studies department of Family Research Council.

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ENDNOTES

1. Nan D. Hunter, Sherryl E. Michaelson, Thomas B. Stoddard, The Rights of Lesbians and Gay Men: The Basic ACLU Guide to a Gay Person’s Rights, Third Edition, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale and Edwardsville, 1992.

2. Wirthlin Worldwide poll of 1,013 respondents, July 23–26, 1999.

3. "South Florida Rolls Out Welcome Mat for Gay Tourists," The Orlando Sentinel, May 10, 1998, p. L2.

4. "Fewer Gays Are Wealthy," Advertising Age, October 19, 1998, p. 58.

5. Ronald Alsop, "Are Gay People More Affluent Than Others?" The Wall Street Journal, December 30, 1999.

6. Demography, The Journal of the Population Association of America, April/May 2000, www.popassoc.org, quoted in "Study Finds Gays Who Have Partners Earn Less," The Houston Chronicle, May 27, 2000, p. A29.

7. Ibid., Alsop.

8. Marcia Philbin, "Branching Out," Miami Daily Business Review, October 6, 2000, p. A13.

9. John O.G. Billy, Koray Tanfer, William R. Grady and Daniel H. Klepinger, "The Sexual Behavior of Men in the United States," Family Planning Perspectives, 25 (1993). See also, J. Gordon Muir, "Homosexuals and the 10% Fallacy," The Wall Street Journal, March 31, 1993, p. A14.

10. Lisa Keen, "Groups Tout Clout," The Washington Blade, September 22, 2000.

11. Lou Chibbaro, Jr, "Budgets Up, Donors Down," The Washington Blade, June 11, 1999.

12. Will O’Bryan, "Human Rights Campaign Heads into Third Decade," The Washington Blade, October 20, 2000.

13. Peter LaBarbera, "Homosexual Reporters/Homosexual Activists," Family Research Council, CultureFacts, September 14, 2000.

14. William Byne and Bruce Parsons, "Human Sexual Orientation: The Biologic Theories Reappraised," The Archives of General Psychiatry, 50 (1993): 228–39.

15. Edward Stein, The Mismeasure of Desire: The Science, Theory, and Ethics of Sexual Orientation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 221.

16. Marshall K. Kirk & Erastes Pill, "The Overhauling of Straight America," Guide Magazine, November 1987, pp. 7–14.

17. Marshall K. Kirk and Hunter Madsen, After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Hatred and Fear of Homosexuals in the ‘90s (New York: Bantam, 1989), pp. 177–8.

18. A.P. Bell and M.S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1978), pp. 308–9; Karla Jay and Allen Young, The Gay Report, (Summit, New York, 1979); Jeffrey A. Kelly et al., "Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome/Human Immunodeficiency Virus Risk Behavior Among Gay Men in Small Cities; Findings of a 16-City National Sample," Archives of Internal Medicine, 152 (1992): 2293–7.

19. Emily Adams, Chronicles, July 1992, p. 10.

Majestic Foolishness: the Supreme Court Legislates Again

The Supreme Court has passed another law, this one supplanting the law passed by the people of the state of Texas in its democratic process. But you say the Court doesn't pass laws. Well, as Justice Scalia in his angry dissent said, the Court is supposed to be a court, but it has become a super-legislature overriding the decisions of the people. What a travesty.

By a 6-3 vote, the unelected nine based their decision to make sodomy constitutionally protected on the so-called “right to privacy.”

Justice Kennedy, who wrote for the majority, said that the issue was “two adults who, with full and mutual consent from each other, engaged in sexual practices common to a homosexual lifestyle.” To deny that, he said, would reflect animus. And, he added, times and circumstances do change. Maybe, but the Constitution doesn't.

And what about the 1986 decision that Kennedy and this majority overthrew? In abortion cases, they constantly lectured us, they can't change the law that people have come to rely on.

Well, most Americans seem to be applauding the decision, and I guess there's a libertarian streak in all of us. We don't like the government in our bedrooms.

But if laws are unreasonable, we ought to change the law through our legislatures, not the courts. As George Will wrote, “'Unconstitutional' is not a synonym for 'unjust' or 'unwise.’ ... Legislators can adjust laws to their communities' changing moral sensibilities without creating, as courts do, principles, such as the broadly sweeping privacy right, that sweep away more than communities intend to discard.”

Precisely. If the right to privacy protects adults engaged in private, consensual sex, how are we going to outlaw polygamy? The polygamist and all of his wives practice private, consensual sex.

How are we going to maintain laws against incest? It's private, consensual sexual behavior in the security of one's own bedroom. Why stop a forty-year-old man having sex with his consenting nineteen-year-old daughter — or son? And why stop siblings as long as there's consent?

And what about pedophilia that's “consensual,” or “intergenerational intimacy,” as the North American Man-Boy Love Association calls it?

One even has to raise the question of bestiality. Peter Singer, the eminent bioethicist at Princeton, argues that animals can consent since consent needn't be verbal.

Sen. Rick Santorum was vilified for raising these questions. So was Bill Pryor, the Alabama attorney general nominated for the Circuit Court. Critics say they're making homosexuality and bestiality or incest morally equivalent. Nonsense. They're simply pointing out that that's what the court is doing — making it inevitable, in fact.

The gay lobby immediately hailed the decision as the prelude to gay marriage. Of course! As Justice Scalia said in his dissent, this decision “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.” Well, will the media apologize to Santorum? They ought to. Will they lobby now to reinstate the Catholic priests who are pedophiles? After all, much of that was “consensual.” Hardly.

What we can hope and pray for is nothing less than a miracle — that two sensible judges will be appointed to join Scalia, Thomas, and Rehnquist. Please, Lord, may it happen.

For further reading:

Read the SUPREME COURT RULING IN LAWRENCE V. TEXAS.

“CHUCK COLSON'S RESPONSE TO THE TEXAS SODOMY LAW DECISION,” BREAKPOINT ONLINE, June 26, 2003.

“HOMOSEXUALS PUSH FOR SAME-SEX MARRIAGE AFTER SODOMY RULING,” CNSNews.com, June 27, 2003.

George F. Will, “LAP DANCING ON THE CONSTITUTION,” WASHINGTON POST, June 27, 2003.

Bob Jones, “ROBED RULERS,” WORLD, July 5, 2003.

Al Dobras, “WILL THE REAL BIGOTS PLEASE STAND UP?“ BREAKPOINT ONLINE, May 9, 2003.

Kathryn Jean Lopez, “THE DISNEY SMEAR,” NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE, June 17, 2003.

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The Generation Gap In Opposition To Same-sex Marriage

A generation gap exists in the country's debate over same-sex “marriage,” new research by the Gallup Organization shows. According to the research, 55 percent of adults oppose legalizing same-sex “marriage,” while 39 percent support it. However, 61 percent of young adults (ages 18-29) say they support legalizing same-sex “marriage.” The 18-29 age bracket is the only one in the poll supportive of the controversial issue. Among those ages 30-49, only 37 percent support same-sex “marriage.” The level of support is 40 percent for those ages 50-64, and a mere 22 percent for those ages 65 and older.

Gallup's research, released July 22, is based on two separate polls -- one of 1,003 adults in June and another of 1,005 adults in May.

Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, attributed the numbers among young adults to two factors: sex education in the public schools and homosexual-friendly entertainment.

“Clearly, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds [of young adults] to the pop culture, to MTV, to Disney and ABC, and to the other networks who are constantly bombarding our young people with positive images of homosexuality,” he told Baptist Press.

Another social conservative, Focus on the Family's Glenn Stanton, told Baptist Press he believes that support among young adults for same-sex “marriage” is thin and is “not gained by strong conviction.” It is a “shrug of the shoulders” position reflected in the “whatever” bumper stickers popular among youth, he said.

“When you put forth some well-reasoned arguments,” minds begin changing, said Stanton, Focus on the Family's director of social research and cultural affairs. “I think we can gain a lot of those young people back.”

Pointing to other polls showing that young adults are “a little more conservative” than their parents, Stanton said those same adults have a higher view of marriage than their parents did -- “primarily because of the way their own parents' marriage worked out,” ending in divorce.

The overall Gallup poll numbers mirror those of other recent polls. A Time/CNN poll of 1,004 adults in July found that 60 percent were opposed to legalizing same-sex “marriage,” while 33 percent were for it. Also, a Wirthlin poll of 1,000 adults in March showed that 57 percent support passage of the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would change the U.S. Constitution to ban same-sex “marriage.”

The Gallup poll, though, shows erosion in the opposition to homosexual “marriage.” In 1996, 68 percent of Americans opposed same-sex “marriage” while 27 percent supported it. By 1999 those numbers were 62 percent for, 35 percent against. When including the new poll, opposition to same-sex “marriage” has declined 13 points in only seven years.

“There is a little bit of good and bad,” Stanton said of the newest Gallup poll. “The good is that the numbers are what they are. The bad is that the numbers seem to be slowly slipping a bit.”

Stanton attributed the slippage in same-sex “marriage” opposition to what Harvard University professor Mary Ann Glendon called “rights talk.”

“Our moral discussion within our nation has come down to that,” Stanton said. The homosexual community “has seized upon that very successfully -- 'we want everyone to have the right to do everything.'“

Once same-sex “marriage” becomes a reality -- perhaps with a ruling from Massachusetts' highest court any day -- the opposition to same-sex “marriage” will increase, Stanton predicted. Americans only recently have begun debating the issue, he said.

“It's hard to warn people and have people get ready and prepare for an earthquake when they don't have any sense that that earthquake is coming,” he said. A ruling for same-sex “marriage,” he said, would be an earthquake.

Additionally, he said, social conservatives have not done a good job educating the public about the dangers of same-sex “marriage,” Stanton said.

“[W]e need to start doing that,” he said. “As the conversation becomes more serious, we will.”

Land said the clock is ticking for the country to pass the Federal Marriage Amendment. If it doesn't, courts will decide the issue, he said.

“If we don't win this struggle in five years, the courts will have made homosexual marriage a fact,” he said. “We've got five years to prevent that from happening, to win the struggle for hearts and minds, to activate those hearts and minds and to get this passed.”

Gallup also asked adults their thoughts on civil unions, which give homosexuals the legal benefits of marriage without the term “marriage.” Vermont is the only state to have such unions. The population was split - 49 percent of adults support legalizing civil unions, 49 percent oppose it.

God's Eye Is On All Guys

From the “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” website:

Five gay men, out to make over the world -- one straight guy at a

time. They are the Fab Five: an elite team of gay men dedicated

to extolling the simple virtues of style, taste and class. Each

week their mission is to transform a style-deficient and culture-

deprived straight man from drab to fab in each of their

respective categories: fashion, food & wine, interior design,

grooming and culture.

In the Old Testament God had deep opinions on fashion (no blended shirts and ornate robes for the priests), food and wine (stay away from scallops and in the New Testament Jesus turned water into wine). And speaking of interior design, His temple was inlaid with intricately detailed gold! There were also many guidelines about grooming and how to operate within a culture.

But, God's purposes in these guidelines were to reveal His holiness and expose sin. He wants us to settle for nothing less than His standards for how we should live. He wants us to cry out for mercy, receive salvation and be content and productive where He places us. He wants us to esteem Him as the Creator and Author of all things perfect and beautiful.

In a 20/20 interview, the style squad of the Bravo Channel expose a little about themselves when one of the team berates a “straight” guy for using wire hangars. The dialog seemed almost to pay homage to the child abuse scene in Mommy Dearest.

The team panders to the basest of humor levels in their audience, laughing indignantly as they rebuke and guffaw over the inadequacies of their “project.” Using flippant comments as the rule, the Fab Five exploit an individual's image concerns and personal insecurities for laughs as they “makeover” this person. Thankfully, God transforms with love and never shame. He calls us to a holy standard knowing that the only way we can make it is by His tender mercy.

The Fab Five would remake the world into their “what's 'in' this season” image.

The Lord liberates the world to bear His Image as unique individuals, whereas the product of Queer Eye is consumer-based and discarded at the end of the day.

What this team is doing is nothing new. Men and women have tried to remake others into their own definitions for a long time. Even we in the church should consider repentance for re-modeling others into our image instead of guiding them to the Lord and His teachings. The Lord wants to reshape all our lives to His original intent that fulfills His holy design and liberates us to sing our unique song for all eternity.

As the world learns how self-identified “gay” men would remake society into their image, those of us who are believers must seek for ourselves and encourage others to allow God to liberate us into His image -- an image that bypasses the exterior and satiates the heart.

A person liberated into God's image will reflect Him well whether dressed in Versace or Wrangler's.

_____________

Adapted from a column by Randy Thomas, communications director for Exodus International.

Does 'Ex-gay' Therapy Work? Published Study Says It Does [2 versions]

The man who led the charge in the 1970s to remove homosexuality from a list of mental disorders now says that those claiming to be “ex-gay” are telling the truth.

Robert Spitzer's finding that some homosexuals can become heterosexuals is sure to re-ignite the debate over the effectiveness of such organizations as Exodus International, which seeks to reach homosexuals with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Three decades ago Spitzer helped lead the charge to take homosexuality off the American Psychiatric Association's list of mental disorders.

Spitzer's study, along with critical analysis from peers, is published in the October 2003 edition of the Archives of Sexual Behavior. He announced his findings in 2001 but had yet to publish them in an academic journal.

His study involved 45-minute telephone interviews with 200 people claiming to be former homosexuals -- 143 men, 57 women. They had to meet certain criteria, such as reporting “at least some minimal change” from homosexuality to heterosexuality that lasted at least five years.

For the purpose of the paper he called all forms of therapy -- religious and non-religious -- “reparative therapy.”

“This study ... clearly goes beyond anecdotal information and provides evidence that reparative therapy is sometimes successful,” Spitzer wrote. “For the participants in our study, there was no evidence of harm [from reparative therapy]. To the contrary, they reported that it was helpful in a variety of ways beyond changing sexual orientation itself.”

One argument against reparative therapy is that it will trigger depression in homosexuals. Spitzer, though, found just the opposite to be true: Those who had undergone reparative therapy had experienced far less depression. Forty-three percent of males and 47 percent of females reported being “markedly” or “extremely” depressed before their therapy. But that number dropped significantly after therapy, with only 1 percent of males and 4 percent of females in the study reporting having been depressed at any time during the year preceding the interview.

“Participants reported benefit from nonsexual changes, such as decreased depression, a greater sense of masculinity in males, and femininity in females, and developing intimate nonsexual relations with members of the same sex,” he wrote. “There is no doubt about what the participants in the study reported. The key question is judging the credibility of their self-reports.”

Spitzer acknowledged the controversial nature of the study. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychiatric Association, American Psychological Association, National Association of Social Work and American Counseling Association all have issued position papers warning of possible harm of reparative therapy, he noted.

His colleagues criticized the report in a series of analytical pieces in the journal. Some said the study's subjects had an agenda and exaggerated the truth; others said the subjects were simply “bisexual.”

“When I started the study and told colleagues about it, I was greeted with anger and disbelief that I would be so foolish as to believe what ex-gays said about themselves,” he wrote. “I therefore should have realized that, despite any methodological improvements in assessment of change that I could incorporate into the study (such as the use of a fully structured interview schedule with detailed questions assessing multiple components of sexual orientation), many critics would never accept the subject's self-reports as credible.”

The average age of the men in the study was 42, the average age of the women 44. Sixty-six percent of the men and 47 percent of the women were married.

The study showed that some of the subjects were still struggling with the change. Of the 158 participants who were no longer in therapy, 13 percent of the men and 10 percent of the women reported that since undergoing therapy they had had a brief occurrence -- usually only a few days -- of “overt homosexual behavior.” But only two of these occurrences had happened in the previous year.

Only 11 percent of the men and 37 percent of the women reported a “complete” break from homosexuality -- that is, not even occasionally thinking a lustful thought.

Forty-three percent of the participants learned about the study from religious ministries while 23 percent learned about it from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, a group of professionals who offer therapy to homosexuals wishing to change. Ninety-three percent said that religion was “extremely” or “very” important in their lives.

Indiana University's John Bancroft argued that the subjects were biased.

“Given their powerful agenda of promoting such treatment, it would be surprising if they did not overestimate the amount of change,” he wrote.

But Spitzer asserted that if the subjects were lying they would not have admitted to their continuing struggles.

“If there was significant bias, one might expect that many participants would report complete or near complete change in all sexual orientation measures ... ,” he wrote.

On average the subjects began having homosexual thoughts at age 12 and began undergoing therapy at age 30.

If taken seriously, the study's findings have a far-reaching impact, Spitzer said.

“First, it questions the current conventional view that desire for therapy to change sexual orientation is always succumbing to societal pressure and irrational internalized homophobia,” he wrote. “For some individuals, changing sexual orientation can be a rational, self- directed goal. Second, it suggests that the mental health professionals should stop moving in the direction of banning therapy that has as a goal a change in sexual orientation.”

Spitzer, who said he was skeptical of reparative therapy before beginning the study, said more studies need to be done.

“[But] given the cost and complexity of such a study and the current view in the mental health professions of the benefits and risks of reorientation therapy, such a study is not going to happen in the near future,” he wrote. “This is unfortunate because of the real questions raised, albeit admittedly not resolved, by this study.”

=====================================

Another version from SermonCentral.com newsletter on July 25, 2005:

An explosive new study says some gay people can turn straight if they really want to. Robert L. Spitzer, a psychiatry professor at Columbia University who led the study, said he couldn’t estimate what percentage of highly motivated gay people can change their sexual orientation but he said the research “shows some people can change from gay to straight, and we ought to acknowledge that.”

Spitzer spearheaded the APA’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. At the time, he said homosexuality does not meet the criteria for a mental disorder, and he called for more research to determine whether some people can change their sexuality.

Spitzer, who said he does not offer reparative therapy and began his study as a skeptic, said the research was paid for out of his department’s funds. He conducted 45-minute telephone interviews with 200 people, 143 of them men, who claimed they had changed their orientation from gay to heterosexual. The average age of those interviewed was 43. They answered about 60 questions about their sexual feelings and behavior before and after their efforts to change. Those efforts had begun about 14 years before the interviews for the men and 12 years for the women Most said they had used more than one strategy to change their orientation About half said the most helpful step was work with a mental health professional, most commonly a psychologist. About a third cited a support group, and fewer mentioned such aids as books and mentoring by a heterosexual.

Spitzer concluded that 66 percent of the men and 44 percent of the women had arrived at what he called good heterosexual functioning. That term was defined as being in a sustained, loving heterosexual relationship within the past year, getting enough satisfaction from the emotional relationship with their partner to rate at least seven on a 10-point scale, having satisfying heterosexual sex at least monthly and never or rarely thinking of somebody of the same sex during heterosexual sex. In addition, 89 percent of men and 95 percent of women said they were bothered only slightly, or not at all, by unwanted homosexual feelings. Only 11 percent of the men and 37 percent of the women reported a complete absence of homosexual indicators, including same-sex attraction.

________

Marriage Debate Requires Study of Homosexual Relationships

Jude 1:7

A 15-page majority opinion by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Nov. 18 avoided several issues that conservatives say should be confronted before the nation embraces same- sex “marriage.”

They point to research showing that homosexual relationships -- particularly those involving homosexual men -- are short-term and rarely monogamous. Such relationships, they say, lead to unhealthy behavior, which in turn produces a spread in sexually transmitted diseases.

Just this year the Centers for Disease Control announced that HIV and syphilis rates among homosexual men are up -- despite the fact that the “safe sex” message has been promoted in America for nearly two decades.

“People need to see that what we're condoning and what we're legalizing now has problems from the very onset,” Mike Haley, a former homosexual who now works for Focus on the Family, told Baptist Press.

Tim Wilkins, another former homosexual who heads Cross Ministry, Inc, agreed.

“Even men and women who are homosexual and have been involved in homosexuality for years have told me frankly that they know of few if any long-term relationships -- male or female,” he told BP.

Conservatives say the brevity of homosexual relationships and lack of monogamy with them matters because the institution of marriage is already in trouble. The brevity of those relationships would change society greatly and would add to an already abysmal divorce rate, which in turn would negatively impact the children they raise.

Evangelicals agree with those arguments but say the problem runs much deeper. Homosexual relationships, they say, run counter to God's plan for mankind. Writing in a Crosswalk.com commentary Oct. 29, R. Albert Mohler Jr. of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said that marriage is the “culminating picture of creation's goodness.”

If homosexuality is rebellion against God, evangelicals say, then it will never bring the contentment that the homosexual seeks.

“Because of that void he is trying to fill it the wrong way and the only way he knows to fill it is through sexual encounters,” Wilkins said. “But after the sexual encounter is over, the emptiness is even larger.

“The sexual relationships simply exacerbate the very problem that [the] male homosexual is trying to alleviate.”

A 1985 book by two homosexual men, David McWhirter and Andrew Mattison, seems to underscore the problem of same-sex relationships. The book, “The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop,” followed more than 150 homosexual men and found that 95 percent of them have “an arrangement whereby the partners may have sexual activity with others at some time under certain conditions.” Their relationships lasted anywhere from one to 37 years.

With the debate over same-sex “marriage” intensifying, The New York Times ran a story in August showing that homosexuals in Canada are not rushing to tie the knot. The debate “pits those who celebrate a separate and flamboyant way of life as part of a counterculture against those who long for acceptance into the mainstream,” the story read.

The story followed two men in their 40s, David Andrew and David Warren, who have lived together for seven years.

Although the men promise to protect one another, the story says “they stop short of monogamy, which is something Mr. Andrew also says he does not believe in.”

The level of promiscuity varies, although it seems to be the norm, author Timothy J. Dailey argues in his book “Dark Obsession.” He quotes a 1997 study of 2,583 older homosexual men published in the Journal of Sex Research that found the “modal range for number of sexual partners ... was 101-500.” Ten to 15 percent said they had had more than 1,000 sexual partners.

“The gay community is going to tell you that the reason that their relationships have problems is because society has not yet condoned them and doesn't give them the privileges that heterosexuals have,” Haley said.

“[But] when we look at areas like San Francisco or the Netherlands, which are very gay affirmative areas, those numbers are even higher.”

The rate of infidelity among homosexuals counters that of heterosexuals. A survey published in the book “Sex in America” found that 90 percent of wives and 75 percent of husbands claimed never to have committed adultery.

The level of promiscuity has been harmful to both the health and the mortality rate of homosexual men.

A 1997 article published in the International Journal of Epidemiology found that in one Canadian urban area, the expected life span for a homosexual man at age 20 was 8 to 20 years less than that for all men.

And the problem of STDs is not improving. The Centers for Disease Control reported this year that new cases of HIV among homosexual men rose for the third straight year. Homosexual men accounted for 42 percent of new HIV cases in 2000 and 60 percent of all cases among all men -- despite the fact that homosexual men make up no more than 1 to 3 percent of the population. Among all new cases heterosexuals accounted for 33 percent, injection drug users 25 percent.

“Even the most promiscuous heterosexual male will not be [involved in] even close to the amount of promiscuity male homosexuals will be involved in,” Wilkins said. “The reason is that the male homosexual has a void in his heart and life. ... Part of that void is the need for a sense of masculinity as to how God has created him.

“Because of that void he is trying to fill it the wrong way and the only way he knows to fill it is through sexual encounters. But after the sexual encounter is over, the emptiness is even larger.”

Haley agreed. “You have individuals attempting to meet an emotional need through a sexual relationship,” he said. “And so when they get together and it's so sexually fueled and they're looking to have their needs met through the sexual encounter, you're left empty handed. There's not a cognitive realization of that -- they just think that the relationships break up and go on.

“Those of us that come out of homosexuality -- that's one of the first things we realize. These relationships that I'm having in these anonymous sexual encounters, they're never going to end up meeting the emotional need that I'm looking for.”

The 'Love' That Won't Keep Quiet: the Gay Moment

Homosexuality was once called “the love that dare not speak its name.” Nowadays, it won't keep quiet. Hardly a day goes by that doesn't bring fresh evidence of the increased social acceptance of homosexuality.

This summer's Supreme Court decision that overturned Texas's law against sodomy is only one more example of this trend. Justice Kennedy's statement that such laws reveal a “bias” against homosexuals reflects this growing acceptance.

It isn't only the courts. Following on the success of “reality” television shows like THE BACHELOR and THE BACHELORETTE, Bravo announced its take on dating shows: BOY MEETS BOY. Once again, a contestant will choose from many potential suitors. Only this time, all of the show's participants will be men.

Viewers of this year's Tony Awards witnessed a kiss between two male winners and heard a speech about how gays should be allowed to marry. These events led NEW YORK TIMES columnist Frank Rich to call the “gay rights movement” a “juggernaut.”

Well, he's right, but the question Christians need to ask is, “How did we get here?” The answer lies in our changing beliefs about sex and personal autonomy.

Historically, sex served two important purposes: procreation and promoting spousal unity. While these may not have always been honored in the observance, no one doubted that these were the purposes of sex.

What's more, it's important to note that this belief went beyond purely personal concerns and had social implications. Society had an obvious interest in the birth of children and the stability of the families that raised them. The well being and perpetuation of the community depended on this institution.

But all of this changed with the sexual revolution. Instead of serving moral and social purposes, sex's overriding purpose was to bring pleasure to those having sex. We see that in all of the literature and all of the discussions through the sexual revolution years. Within that worldview, it became difficult, if not impossible, to judge the morality of any sexual act between consenting adults. Once you determine consent, there is nothing left to say.

This suits our culture's obsession with personal autonomy perfectly. It's not just that people want to be free to do as they please, they want to live their lives without any scrutiny at all, especially in sexual matters. In this context, merely suggesting that something is wrong is a form of “coercion” and, thus, prohibited.

It's these attitudes, and the worldview that produces them, that have fueled the gay-rights movement. It rolls on because it resonates with what many Americans believe. And that means that the only way to slow it down is to change the terms of the debate: to once again establish that we are not lower than the animal species, that sex is not for recreation — it is for procreation.

As Jennifer Roback Morse, the eminent Stanford economist, has argued so eloquently, we must recapture this understanding of the natural order of sex's purpose in our culture. Christians have to step forward and make this case. And until we do, there will be no stopping the gay rights “juggernaut.”

THIS COMMENTARY FIRST AIRED ON JULY 29, 2003.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 030630, “'Majestic' Foolishness: The Supreme Court Legislates Again.”

• Frank Rich, “Gay Kiss: Business As Usual,” New York Times, 22 June 2003. (Archived article; costs $2.95 to retrieve.)

• Bill Werde, “A First at Bride's Magazine: A Report on Same-Sex Unions,” New York Times, 28 July 2003. (Free registration required.)

• Roberto Rivera, “Queer Eye for Fast Fashion,” BreakPoint Online, 17 December 2003.

• Joan Biskupic, “Court's opinion on gay rights reflects trends,” USA Today, 18 July 2003.

• Stanley Kurtz, “Beyond Gay Marriage,” Weekly Standard, August 4/11, 2003.

• Maggie Gallagher, “What Marriage Is For,” Weekly Standard, August 4/11, 2003.

• Jennifer Roback Morse, “Fruitful Love,” (18 December 2003) and “Love and...“ (17 December 2003) from National Review Online.

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The Love I So Desperately Needed

Luke 13:10

Diane Venus' testimony:

My name is Diane Venus and I am a child of God. I am also a sinner, saved by grace. I am filled with pride and self-righteousness and I ask the Lord to break me of it, even now.

I'd like to share a verse from Scripture that has become my story. “On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, He called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity. Then He put His hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.” Luke 13:10-13

Well, I am like that woman, except that I've been in bondage for 31 years and that's been to the slavery of lesbianism. I come from a very dysfunctional family. I was an only child for fourteen years and my parents were Catholic, but Sunday-only type of Catholics. My father was a transvestite, emotionally absent from both my mother and myself, and was mentally ill. My mother was very needy. Since she received no real love from her husband, she used me to fulfill “spousal” needs. Although, up until a few months ago, I had been sure there was actual sexual abuse by my mother, now I think that it was more of an emotional incest. I had to mother my mother at a very early age and this continued into my adulthood. I remember one incident when I was about three or four years old. We lived in the country and there was a very severe thunder storm. I was really scared and wanted my mother to soothe my fears. Instead, my mother came to me, laid her head on my lap, and wanted me to comfort her.

In the 6th grade, I began developing attractions to older, nurturing women, mostly nuns and teachers. I would tell them all my problems - they would comfort me and physically hold me. Then when I was fourteen years old, my sister was born. She was three months premature and was very hyperactive, but the doctors told us that with the right interventions she would be fine. However, when my sister was three years old, my mother came to me and told me that she wanted to give her up for adoption because she was too much for her. This was traumatizing for me and I began to wonder if my mother had wanted to give me up for adoption too.

I begged my mother not to give my sister up for adoption. Since I was already planning a career in Special Education, I implied to my mother that I would actually take care of my sister and that things would be all right.

Upon graduation from a Catholic high school, I left the church and became an ardent atheist and existentialist. I went to college and majored in Special Education and minored in philosophy, and I thought that I was, just tops. It was at this time, that my need for same-sex love actually became sexualized. I quickly moved in with another woman, and within a few weeks, we became lesbian lovers. At first, this relationship was very Unfilling, and exciting, and romantic. We did everything together; we were inseparable and became very dependent on each other. We associated with other lesbian couples, participated in orgies, sado-masochistic rituals, and dappled into drugs. After about three years, the relationship started to deteriorate. My lover was growing tired of me sexually and subsequently I had an affair with a mutual lesbian friend.

I confessed this to my lover, only to find out to my complete surprise, that my lover was leaving me for that friend. I was devastated, my world fell apart, I became suicidal and was hospitalized briefly.

There were several lovers after that. I engaged in many one-night stands, was active in the bar scene, went on dyke marches, pro-abortion rallies, and even to a “women-only” farm, where there was nudity and free and open expression of lesbian sexuality. During this time, I was proudly known as a Lesbian Feminist Militant.

Surprisingly, also during this time, I became interested in religion again and returned to Catholicism. I entered spiritual direction and continued for many years, but never told anyone about my “double-life.” In 1982, at the age of 27, 1 entered a Catholic convent. While I sincerely thought I wanted to serve God, I really wanted a lover in “religious” garb. Although I couldn't admit this to myself, I did actually lie about my previous hospitalization and sexual activity. I tried to repress my past, but instead, developed a sexual attraction to my superior and subtly tried to act on it. She rejected that relationship and I retreated into infantile behavior, got sick and was asked to leave two years after joining. I was again devastated, and was hospitalized several times for very brief stays.

Since then suitable lover. It was sort of a tongue-in-cheek celibacy. However, I remained very active in the gay and lesbian world in New York City and got involved in Metropolitan Community Church, a very pro-gay church.

All this time, I kept seeking “pseudo-romantic” relationships through emotional dependencies on “stronger” women. I was a master manipulator of women who were mother figures to me. To keep them tied to me, I would become very dependent, and acted like a child to get attention. Whenever I felt rejected, I “feigned” sickness and went to the hospital just to book a woman in. I thought “If I'm suicidal, then she'd have to care for me. “ This culminated in what I call the “stoking hair incident.” Once during a feigned suicide attempt, my “friend” came with me in the ambulance to the hospital. As we were riding together, I started sobbing and she put her arm around me and began stroking my hair for the entire ride of about five minutes. This felt soooooo good, and afterwards, after a stay in a hospital, thousands of thousands of dollars of medical bills not covered by my insurance, countless visits to psychiatrists, zombie like medications, loss of reputation, and an almost collapse of a 20 year thriving career, not even beginning to consider the untold pain and suffering, I thought it was all worth it for that five minutes of a woman stroking my hair.

Well, the Lord had had enough. A little over 2 years ago, a friend, who was not a mother figure, led me to the Lord. She introduced me to a small evangelical church. For the first time in my life, I admitted my lesbianism and double life to my female pastor and accepted the Lord as my Savior in February of 1997. Though my pastor accepted me, she was clear about Scripture regarding homosexuality and I finally wanted to stop. She led me to Dave Wanner, a Biblical counselor with-a ministry to those struggling with homosexuality.

However, quickly my relationship with my female pastor became very dependent. She rejected this dependency and once more, I feigned sickness, went to the hospital and tried to hook her in. But this time Dave squarely confronted me about this. And then the Lord showed me that it was actually my pride, not my weakness that was the deep-rooted sin. All along, I had thought that I could get my own needs met through M extreme manipulations, instead of allowing God to care for me. I thought I knew better than God. I finally admitted my true helplessness to the Lord and turned my life completely over to him and in December of 1997, 1 asked him to be Lord of my life, and not just Savior.

For the first time, it was me who left an unhealthy relationship ( the one with my female pastor) and I joined a larger, healthier, evangelical congregation. The Lord started a painful and arduous process of real growth. I started to see the pattern in my past relationships. I realized that all along I had been looking, for a “mother” to love me and nurture me, which I had never received from early childhood on up. But then, I began to assume responsibility for my sin, and no longer played the role of victim. My actual physical attraction to women quickly stopped. It was the Lord who healed that. My desire for women as mothers was gradually and continues to be replaced by a growing desire for the Lord. My emotional dependency on other women was gradually and continues to be replaced by a TOTAL AND RADICAL DEPENDENCE ON THE LORD. Now, I have absolutely no desire for women as sexual partners, and totally reject lesbianism. I have a growing sense of myself as a mature, blossoming, heterosexual woman.

The Lord and I have developed a deep intimacy and intense prayer life. When I do struggle with feelings of dependency, or feel rejected or abandoned, I try to remember to turn to the Lord in prayer. We spend quality time together in prayer, and I mean lots of time. He nurtures me as mother, as well as my long-lost father. When I don't turn to the Lord, I begin to return to slavery. It's as clear as black and white.

I desire to have a meaningful relationship with a mature Christian man, but do not “go” after it. Instead wait quietly on the Lord. If it's His will ,it will happen and in His perfect timing. If it's not His will, I am very happy being a single Christian woman, very involved in the service of my master. I reality, it is the Lord Himself who is my mate, my Bridegroom, my husband. In the meantime, I have been developing healthy and meaningful relationships with the men and women in my Christian community, my new family, in the Body of Christ.

20 years of secular therapy, 13 brief hospitalizations, thousands of dollars in medical bills, countless visits to psychiatrists, large amounts of medication, and years upon years of intense pain and suffering. and of course my hell-bent life of sin - none of these ever helped me nor ever brought me the love I so desperately needed.

Well, I have found that love in the Lord. Two years with the Lord, and here I am speaking to you today.

On March 20, 1999 I gave this testimony at a United Methodist Conference on “Homosexuality: Hope and Healing.”

I would like to give a special thanks to Dave Wanner, counselor, mentor and friend.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

'Love the Sinner' Adage Should Be Avoided

Jude 1:7

It's an adage that has become part of the national debate over homosexuality -- “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” But does it get the point across?

Focus on the Family's Mike Haley thinks the phrase is harmful, at least to homosexuals. A former homosexual himself who is now a Christian, Haley spoke in Nashville, Tenn., Feb. 7 as part of Focus on the Family's Love Won Out conference.

“That makes sense to those of us that sit in the pews, but to those in the gay community it doesn't make sense,” Haley said during a session on reaching homosexuals with the Gospel. “Because what you're saying to them is, 'I love you but I don't love what you're doing.’ They don't cognitively process that. They are defined by what they're doing.”

So, what should be said?

“You don't say anything,” Haley said. “You show them that you love them. ... You show them that they're important to you.”

Other oft-used words can be just as harmful -- such as “choice” and “lifestyle,” he said.

“The last thing I wanted was to be homosexual,” Haley said. “Most people I know in the gay community don't desire to be homosexual. They found themselves there through the developmental processes and it has gotten them to [a] place where they have adopted a homosexual orientation.”

But the word “choice” isn't always a no-no. It can be used after the homosexual person begins to deal with their sin, Haley said.

“Once we realize and find ourselves struggling with homosexual orientation, then we have the ability to choose [and say,] 'Are we going to respond to that temptation, or are we not going to choose to respond to that orientation?” he said.

Haley said he uses the word “lifestyle” when talking to Christians but avoids it when debating homosexual activists. The word is confusing to homosexuals, he said, because everyone has a different lifestyle.

“[Y]our lifestyle is different to them,” he said. “Replace [lifestyle] with the word homosexuality. It fits every time.”

The words that Christians use are key, Haley said.

“The language that we use in the Christian community is very, very important,” he said. “What makes sense to you and I doesn't make sense to the gay community.”

Christians must perform a balancing act when befriending and sharing the Gospel with a homosexual person, Haley said, adding that in some instances there can be a fine line between ministering to a homosexual and condoning homosexuality.

For example, he said, a Christian working alongside a homosexual woman could minister to her if she breaks up with her partner. But that would not involve praying for the partner's return. Haley said it would be OK to pray with the woman by asking God, “Lord, you know how much she is hurting. Would you come in and show her how much you love her?”

Christians must have a “hand up-hand out” approach in reaching homosexuals, Haley said. The hand up symbolizes standing for biblical truth that homosexuality is a sin. The hand out symbolizes welcoming homosexuals -- as well as all sinners -- into the church.

Joe Dallas, a counselor from California and a former homosexual, said that in many ways the Christian church has failed in its outreach to homosexuals.

“If we are to effectively address homosexuality in the culture, the church must first repent of whatever immorality exists within her own ranks and she must recommit herself to biblical standards of holiness,” he said.

“... If you came here because you oppose homosexuality and yet if you yourself secretly use pornography or are involved in adulterous behavior, you are a part of the problem you came here to fight. And you cannot be a part of the solution if you are part of the problem.

The church, Dallas said, must repent of its hostility toward homosexuals and recommit to “bold love.” In addition, the church must repent of being intimidated by homosexual activists and recommit to its prophetic role.

Small things can make a big difference, Dallas said. For instance, Christians can encourage leaders who consistently take unpopular public stands on homosexuality. Also, Christians can get involved in the national debate by calling in to talk shows and writing letters to the editor to newspapers and magazines, which he said help put a good face on conservative Christianity.

“Aren't you tired of letting somebody else speak for you?” Dallas asked. “... You have a good mind, you know how to string together a few sentences. Give a balanced, compassionate, wise, relevant expression of the faith on this issue.”

Bucking the Trend: Courts Resist Lawrence

Last summer, the Supreme Court, in LAWRENCE V. TEXAS, overturned a Texas statute against sodomy. The majority's sweeping rhetoric prompted concern that the Court's opinion would undermine marriage and virtually every other moral standard. Justice Scalia was outraged in his dissent.

Earlier this month, two important decisions concerning homosexuality came down, and surprisingly, the courts found a way around LAWRENCE. It's a reminder of the difference that judges who respect the law, instead of trying to write it, can make.

The first case, LIMON V. KANSAS, involved a challenge to Kansas's statutory rape law. The law, which prohibits sex between adults and minors, makes an exception in cases where the participants are close in age.

The exception, however, only applies to heterosexual, not homosexual, relations and, thus, was not expected to survive the LAWRENCE decision. In fact, the Supreme Court ordered the Kansas appellate court to reconsider LIMON in the light of LAWRENCE.

The Kansas court did and, to the surprise of many, upheld the statute. The Kansas court cited the “deterioration of the sexual morality” that Kansans believe in, “the need to reduce the spread of sexually transmitted diseases,” and the non-procreative nature of homosexual sex as valid reasons for treating homosexual sex differently from heterosexual.

And what about LAWRENCE? The court distinguished LIMON from that case by noting that LAWRENCE was about the right to privacy, and LIMON was about equal protection of the laws.

The same distinction figured in the Eleventh Circuit's decision in LOFTON V. DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES. That case challenged Florida's ban on gay adoptions. Like LIMON, the law wasn't expected to survive LAWRENCE, and, like LIMON, it confounded expectations. The Eleventh Circuit ruled that LAWRENCE had not created a “fundamental right” to “engage in private sexual conduct.” The court went even further, chastising the Supreme Court for “issuing a ruling that invoked principles not with 'careful description,' but with sweeping generality.” Good for the Eleventh Circuit.

This is important, because if the Supreme Court had created a “fundamental right,” that right could only be infringed by a “compelling” societal interest. Instead, the Court of Appeals was free to defer to Florida's decision to limit adoption to “optimal home[s] ... one in which there is a heterosexual couple or the potential for one.”

These rulings remind us of the importance of judicial appointments. While the much-criticized LAWRENCE decision opened the door for these rulings, not every judge has been willing to walk through it. Taking their stand requires a commitment to interpreting, not making, the law. That is the role envisioned by the founders.

It also takes courage, not only to criticize the Supreme Court publicly, but also, as the Kansas court did, to cite the increased health risks associated with homosexual activity.

This is likely to be an issue in the fall election, and it's important. As we saw in Kansas and the Eleventh Circuit, the kind of judges on the bench determine whether they are going to force their values on the people or respect the people's moral judgments.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Joseph Landau, “Misjudged: What Lawrence Hasn't Wrought,” New Republic, 9 February 2004. (Available to subscribers only.)

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040204, “A Time for Action: The Federal Marriage Amendment.”

• Call 1-877-3-CALLBP to request the complimentary Marriage Amendment information packet, which includes articles on marriage and family by William Bennett and Stanley Kurtz, the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement on marriage, the text of the Federal Marriage Amendment, and a chart from the Alliance for Marriage outlining the legal impact of the amendment. Also available is the BreakPoint Speak the Truth in Love resource kit ($25), which includes CDs, booklets, articles, and more to help you speak effectively and compassionately on the issue of homosexuality and marriage.

• Visit One Hundred Thousand Ministers for information on what pastors can do: http://www.onehundredthousandministers.com/

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040130, “Look Before We Leap: Scandinavia and the End of Marriage.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 031119, “Leave It to the Courts: Judicial Power and the Redefinition of Marriage.”

• Visit BreakPoint's Sanctity of Marriage resource page: http://www.pfm.org/Wilberforcetemplate.cfm?Section=Wilberforce_Home&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=10746

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Revivalism, Civil Rights & Same-sex 'Marriage'

Romans 1:32

Forty years from now will our children celebrate Rosie O'Donnell as the Rosa Parks of the early 21st century?

After all, it is easy now to identify the heroes and villains of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. We all can agree that when Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, she was challenging a set of unjust and oppressive laws. Now the same-sex “marriage” movement is seeking to cast itself as the heirs of the civil rights movement. Ms. O'Donnell and her lesbian partner, along with scores of less famous same-sex couples, are “marrying” in San Francisco and across the country. The activists sing “We Shall Overcome” and cast their opponents as the heirs of George Wallace standing in the wedding chapel door. And, although they might never admit it, some evangelicals secretly fear they may be right. Are we on the wrong side of history?

The problem with the homosexual rights movement is not just that they don't understand Christian Scripture. They don't understand the civil rights movement either. As a groundbreaking recent book acknowledges, the theme song of the civil rights activists was as much “Just As I Am” as “We Shall Overcome.”

In “A Stone of Hope: Prophetic Religion and the Death of Jim Crow,” historian David Chappell argues that scholars have neglected the motivating force behind the success of the civil rights movement -- evangelical Christianity. Chappell argues that activists like Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. appealed to the prophetic rhetoric of biblical revelation, not to the secularist hope for the triumph of progress. The movement energized black Americans not with liberation theology but with an orthodox revivalism that emphasized the image and impartiality of God. At the same time, Chappell argues, the civil rights movement was successful because it shamed segregationist church members with the very Gospel they claimed to believe.

As Chappell rightly notes, the Southern Baptist Convention condemned Jim Crow from the onset of the civil rights movement — - and by wide margins. Why? The arguments for racial justice were not based on any secular vision of “liberation.” The arguments were based on biblical concepts like personal regeneration and the Great Commission.

Even theological liberals like Southern Baptists Foy Valentine and Henlee Barnette used very conservative arguments as they called the churches to do the right thing on civil rights. If Jesus died for all people, they would argue, why do you discriminate on the basis of race? If you are sending Lottie Moon mission money for the evangelization of Africa, how can you deny black Christians membership in your church? These arguments changed the culture because they carried with them the sanctifying power of the oracles of God. Regenerate hearts ultimately melted before such arguments because in them they heard the voice of their Christ.

At the same time, Chappell points out how segregationist groups like the White Citizens' Councils were not, as so often stereotyped, “fundamentalist” groups. Instead, these noxious clans were led by men who often attacked church leadership and even church attendance itself because they feared the way revivalism often led to a softening of racial hatred. In short, they were what contemporary evangelicals would call “the unchurched.”

It is this moral credibility that is missing from the same-sex marriage movement. The civil rights movement of Rosa Parks based its success on a shared memory of Christian conversionism. The homosexual rights movement of Rosie O'Donnell, by contrast, will only succeed by wiping out such memory. The homosexual liberationists not only contradict the biblical witness about the morality of “gay” sex, they ground their arguments in unbiblical concepts like biological determinism and the impossibility of sexual chastity for those tempted by same-sex attractions. Such arguments are confounded by the testimony of Scripture -- and by the lyrics of every evangelical invitation hymn.

Conversionist Christianity also speaks to the current debate. But now it should inform the arguments of the traditionalists, not the liberationists. And perhaps this is what is missing from some religious right posturing on the same-sex “marriage” question so far. Our pulpits communicate well the “wrongness” of same-sex unions. But too often we sound like a “constituency” arguing for our rights to the status quo. We speak about what is at stake for “our” marriages and “our” families -- and all that is true. But we should speak more about what is at stake for those tempted to follow the lie of homosexual liberation. The apostle Paul reveals to us the outcome: death (Romans 1:32). That truth should make our hands tremble and our eyes moisten.

With this the case, we should oppose same-sex “marriage” not just because we believe Romans 1, but also because we believe John 3:16. And the culture should see us as brokenhearted revivalists, not just outraged moralists. We shouldn't see homosexuality simply as a threat to family values in the abstract. We should weep that it is also a Roman road to hell -- for real people with faces, names, and church letters.

There's a lot at stake here. We should doggedly fight the move toward redefining marriage -- in our denominational meetings, in our state legislatures and in the halls of the Supreme Court. But, when all is said and done, let's be ready for what genuine civil rights activists should always be prepared to do.

Let's give an invitation.

Homosexuality & the United Methodist Church

In Bothell, Washington, a United Methodist pastor has been acquitted of charges that she violated church law by living as a homosexual while serving in her role.

Karen Dammann was on leave as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Ellensburg, 95 miles east of Seattle. She and her partner of nine years were among hundreds of couples illegally “married” in Portland, Ore., earlier this month.

UMC law prohibits the ordination of self-avowed, practicing homosexuals. A jury of 13 pastors, however, managed to rationalize their way to the conclusion that Dammann was not guilty of violating the law. Her church lawyer, Robert Ward, had asked the jury to ignore church rules and “do what is right.”

His reasoning? “We need to be careful about creating rules that exclude people.”

Such is the upside-down thinking of our lost society, including many church members: “Excluding people” is the sin; homosexuality is just how someone feels.

And in this society, nothing trumps feelings. Not just anyone's feelings, of course. My feelings. Not yours or anyone else's. Just mine. It's irrelevant that the UMC's church law actually reflects God's opinion about homosexuality. What matters is how Dammann feels.

One press report quoted Dammann as saying, “God called me into ordained ministry, and I just can't believe that God makes a mistake.”

She's half right. God doesn't make mistakes. But if we base truth on our feelings, people often do.

Ms. Dammann has a feeling that she interprets as God's call into ordained ministry. She also feels sexually attracted to people of the same sex. In her mind, she is, therefore, a homosexual minister.

The problem is that people have all kinds of feelings. Some of them are high-minded, like a desire to serve in pastoral ministry. Others are subhuman, like a rage that drives someone to rape or murder.

Dammann and her lawyer argued that she ought to be free to draw a paycheck from the United Methodist Church because she feels a call to ministry. But prisons are full of men who did nothing more than act on their feelings. If her feelings matter more than the rules, why don't theirs?

Dammann's opinion -- shared by many these days -- is that “excluding people” is wrong. But she can't give a reason for why it's wrong other than her own feelings.

You see, people who define truth by what they feel also reject the idea that there are any absolute truths against which our feelings are measured. Truth for them is what seems true to each individual. All of us, they say, have to discover what is true for ourselves.

But if truth is personal opinion, why would one person's opinion be any better than another's? Ms. Dammann has her opinion, but Methodist church law reflects another opinion. Why should the one opinion be changed just to suit her?

A society must have a standard by which everyone's feelings and opinions are judged. Otherwise, everyone just does “what is right in his own eyes,” and no one has the right to tell anyone else that his opinions and feelings are wrong -- no matter how foul they are.

Unfortunately, that means having rules. And having rules means some people's feelings and opinions are “excluded.” So you need to have a really good reason for the rules you choose to live by.

The UMC rule against homosexual ministers is based on Scripture -- the only place people can turn for a reliable word about what is right and wrong. That's because Scripture is not just a collection of various people's opinions; it's the collected wisdom that Creator God has chosen to give us.

The reason Ms. Dammann can't explain why it's wrong for UMC law to “exclude” homosexuals from clergy roles is that she doesn't accept any truth higher than her own feelings and opinion. UMC law -- and God's own Word, for that matter -- are irrelevant to her.

Those 13 Methodist jurors held the course of a denomination in their hands. They could have upheld a rule based on the Creator's intention, but they chose to push open a door for chaos in the United Methodist Church.

If a Scripture-based rule against homosexual clergy can't be upheld, why would anything else be off limits?

God's Word V. God's Spirit?: A Case of Methodist Madness

Nine years ago, Karen Dammann quietly moved in with her lesbian lover. She didn't advertise the fact because, as a United Methodist pastor, she risked losing her job if she did so. The denomination's Book of Discipline condemns homosexual acts and prohibits ordination of practicing homosexuals.

For six years Ms. Dammann kept her secret from church officials. Then in February 2001, while seeking a new pastoral appointment, in a letter to her bishop she confirmed that she was a practicing homosexual. Against his own wishes, but compelled by church law, Bishop Elias Galvan filed a charge against Dammann. The case came to trial in a church court, and last week a jury of thirteen Methodist pastors, eight women and five men, declared Ms. Dammann not guilty.

The jury demonstrated a remarkably flexible attitude toward the facts. It declared, “The church did not present sufficient, clear, and convincing evidence to sustain the charge.” In other words, Dammann's letter, her frequent public statements about her homosexuality, and her visible public behavior do not prove she has engaged in homosexual acts? Or what about the fact that she and her partner obtained a “marriage license” from the city clerk of Portland, Oregon?

The jurors also indicated they were puzzled about the meaning of the words INCOMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIAN TEACHING. They decided that the words don't mean what they seem to say and are open to various interpretations. Explaining its conclusions and decision, the court stated, “We depended on the leading of the Holy Spirit.”

Well, I can understand the assault on biblical morality by secularists. After all, they consider the Bible irrelevant to their lives. But to witness the same assault from people who identify themselves as Christian pastors and spiritual leaders is heartwrenching — and outrageous. It's a claim that the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures also contradicts His own word and welcomes gross sin into the heart of the Church.

With 8.5 million members, the United Methodist Church is the third largest denomination in the United States. Its history goes back to one of the most godly and effective preachers of all time, John Wesley. Wesley's immense influence transformed the moral and social landscape of England in the mid- to late-1700s. Countless lives were salvaged from crime, drunkenness, and debauchery.

From the beginning the Methodists identified themselves as a “holiness movement.” They aspired to experience the life of Jesus Christ working in and through their consecrated hearts. From them other laudable movements have sprung, including the Salvation Army.

The United Methodists have repeatedly voted against relaxing policies on homosexuality. But their decisions have been severely undermined by this court that found ambiguity where there was none and has sown confusion in the lives of Methodists who read the Bible as a source of morality and truth.

In the midst this relativism in the culture and now in the Church, believing Christians must stand firm. If you're a United Methodist, protest to your bishop. If you are in another denomination, be forewarned: This fight will not stop with the Methodists.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Cal Thomas, “Spinning John Wesley,” Modesto Bee, 28 March 2004.

• Kevin Eckstrom, “Methodist Bishops Say Rules on Gay Clergy Unchanged,” Beliefnet, 26 March 2004.

• Richard Vara, “Sunday sermons to decry lesbian pastor's acquittal,” Houston Chronicle, 25 March 2004.

• Linda Green, “Individual bishops voice disappointment over verdict,” United Methodist News Service, 26 March 2004.

• Shannon Dininny, “Methodists cheer, jeer lesbian pastor's victory,” Arizona Central, 22 March 2004.

• Read more response from Methodists on the Confessing Movement's website.

• Read the United Methodist Church's position on homosexuality.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040205, “As Long As We All Get Along: Selling Truth for Unity.”

• Roberto Rivera, “Love, Marriage, and Family,” BreakPoint Online, 24 March 2004.

• “Trouble in the Church“ — In this interview with “BreakPoint” Managing Editor Jim Tonkowich, Dr. John Yates II, senior minister of the Falls Church in Falls Church, VA, discusses the current crisis in the Episcopal Church: the election of Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, to be bishop of New Hampshire. They discuss how the Church should approach the issue of homosexuality.

• Visit One Hundred Thousand Ministers for ideas that churches and pastors may use in addressing the issue of homosexuality and same-sex “marriage.”

• Robert George, The Clash of Orthodoxies (ISI Books, 2001).

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The Heteroflexible, Pansensual, Bi-curious Teenager — the Fast Lane In the American High School

Teenage sexuality has been a perpetual concern for parents -- and for good reason. In our own times, American teenagers have unprecedented opportunities to experiment sexually and they are bombarded with cultural messages that encourage sexual experimentation and promiscuity. In a very real sense, the chickens have come home to roost as this nation faces the inevitable result of a breakdown in sexual morality.

A shocking portrait of the new shape of teenage sexual activity is provided in a cover story published in the February 6, 2006 edition of NEW YORK. In “Love and the Ambisexual, Heteroflexible Teen,” Alex Morris introduces us to the “cuddle puddle” of New York City's Stuyvesant High School. Brace yourselves -- this is a shocking form of reality therapy.

Morris first introduces his readers to Alair, a sixteen-year-old junior at Stuyvesant High School. Alair is dressed in a tight white tank top that is cut off above the hem in order to expose her midriff. She accessorizes with a black leather belt that features metal chains and studs, and she attracts a great deal of attention as she walks down the halls of her very selective high school.

Alair is on her way to the “cuddle puddle” that takes place during the students' free tenth period of the day. As Morris describes the scene, “There are girls petting girls and girls petting guys and guys petting guys.” Alair quickly connects with Jane and Elle, fellow juniors at the high school. “All three have hooked up with each other. All three have hooked up with boys -- sometimes the same boys. But it's not that they're gay or bisexual, not exactly. Not always,” Morris advises. The boys and girls of the “cuddle puddle” are experimenting with sexuality in all of its varied forms -- and this will stretch the imagination of most adults.

“With teenagers there is always a fair amount of posturing when it comes to sex,” Morris admits, “a tendency to exaggerate or trivialize, innocence mixed with swagger. It's also true that the 'puddle' is just one clique at Stuyvesant and that Stuyvesant can hardly be considered a typical high school. It attracts the brightest public-school students in New York, and that may be an environment conducive to fewer sexual inhibitions. 'In our school,' Elle says, 'people are getting a better education, so they're more open-minded.'“

In other words, the “cuddle puddle” at this New York high school is not fully representative of adolescents across the nation, but it may soon be. Indeed, data released by the National Center for Health Statistics indicates that eleven percent of American girls age fifteen to nineteen reported same-sex sexual encounters.

As Morris explains, “More girls are experimenting with each other, and they're starting younger.” Many analysts believe that these numbers are actually under-reported. One researcher indicates that as many as twenty percent of teenage girls experiment sexually with another girl during their teenage years.

“Go to the schools, talk to the kids, and you'll see that somewhere along the line this generation has started to conceive of sexuality differently.” No kidding. The teenagers at this high school greet each other sexually, grabbing various body parts, the way students used to slap each other on the back or the way adults shake hands.

The difference in the way these teenagers conceive sexuality has led some child-development specialists to identify them as the “post-gay” generation.

Homosexuality -- lesbianism in particular -- is seen as a developmental stage or as a completely valid lifestyle choice. The participants in the “cuddle puddle” tend to think of themselves as more than heterosexual or homosexual. As they have collected and coined words to describe themselves, they use terms like “polysexual, ambisexual, pansexual, pansensual, polyfide, bi-curious, bi-queer, fluid, meteroflexible, heteroflexible, heterosexual with lesbian tendencies” or “just sexual.” As Morris concedes, “The terms are designed less to achieve specificity than to leave all options open.”

Alair, for example, admits to frequent sexual hook-ups with both boys and girls. She is featured on the front cover of the magazine holding on to a half-naked boy named Jason and cuddling next to Molly, another girl.

Her parents are only mildly concerned, if at all. Morris describes Alair as “one of the lucky ones whose parents don't mind her bisexual tendencies.” He goes on to describe Alair's father as the president of a company that manages performance artists and her mom as a “professional organizer.” As Alair sees it, her parents are “awesome.” She reflects: “I think they've tried to raise me slightly quirky, like in a very hippie little way, and it totally backfired on them.” She now understands that she has gone “further than I think they wanted me to go.”

Speaking to Morris, Alair's mom said: “I can't say I was pleased.... But I can't say that I was upset either. I like that she's forthright about what she wants, that she values her freedom, that she takes care of herself. But I have all the trepidations a parent has when they learn their child is becoming sexually active.”

The “cuddle puddle” is a puzzle of complicated relationships. Many of the girls have hooked up with each other in the past and some continue to do so in the present. They caress each other's hair and bodies and do so in front of boys who may be hooking up with each other as the girls watch. Occasionally, the girls and boys hook up with each other, but this seems to be less frequent, at least for the girls, than same-sex activities.

For these kids, the only sin is repression. They consider any opposition to homosexuality -- any notion that any form of consensual sexual activity among these teenagers could be morally wrong -- to be evidence of nothing more than psychological repression and intolerance.

“To these kids, homophobia is as socially shunned as racism was to the generation before them,” Morris explains. “They say it's practically the one thing that's not tolerated at their school. One boy who made disparaging remarks about gay people has been ridiculed and taunted, his belongings hidden around the school. 'We're a creative bunch when we hate someone,' says Nathan. Once the tormenters, now the tormented.”

As it turns out, the “cuddle puddle” is only a warm up for what follows. The real action for these teenagers takes place at parties, most often held in their own homes. With parents distracted by work and their own interests, these kids are given a free reign in empty houses and, as this account makes graphically clear, this leads to all kinds of sexual activity that takes place in the bedrooms and bathrooms of the homes.

When the group shows up at Nathan's home, the guys begin to hang out in Nathan's room. Before long, they are joined by some of the girls and making out begins. The group orders Chinese food and passes an ice cube around the room, which everyone is expected to put into their pants.

“It's just another afternoon of casual flirtation. The boys showing off for the girls, the girls showing off for everyone. No strings attached. In theory, anyway.”

The industrial revolution and the other massive social changes that have so reshaped American life led to the development of what we now call adolescence -- an extended (and growing) period of time in which sexually-mature young persons are largely congregated together without a great deal of adult supervision. They are not expected to accept and fulfill adult responsibilities, and the sexual boundaries and rules that had at least defined and restricted teenage sexual behavior in the past have largely evaporated.

Stuyvesant High School may be somewhat atypical, but the “cuddle puddle” is not. The development of the American high school has produced a social context for teenagers that separates them from parental oversight, gathers them together in one place, and privileges their own social structure, friendships, and peer morality above all others.

Anyone who doubts the impact of the sexual revolution needs only to read this article in order to see our present crisis -- much less the future. Of course, there are some who, like Alair's parents, will celebrate teenage sexual liberation, even to the point of ambisexual and heteroflexible sexual experimentation.

Missing from this entire picture is any notion that human sexuality is a stewardship to be protected and a gift to be respected, rather than simply a physical capacity to be used in personal experimentation and polymorphous gratification. This is what a world without sexual rules looks like -- a giant “cuddle puddle” of sexual experimentation. Can we even imagine the life-long and eternal consequences of the “cuddle puddle?”

A Preacher Is Arrested In Britain

Acts 5:27

We are witnessing the constriction of Christian speech and the criminalizing of Christian ministry. The Bible clearly condemns homosexual behaviors, and the Christian church has been clear about this teaching for twenty centuries. But now, the statement that homosexuality is a sin can land a preacher in jail.

________

We have seen this coming for some time now. The public space has been closing, especially when it comes to Christian speech — and especially when that speech is about homosexuality.

Now, a Christian preacher has been arrested in Britain for the crime of saying in public that homosexuality is a sin. This arrest is more than a news event — it is a signal of things to come and an announcement of a new public reality. Even if all charges are dropped against this preacher, the signal is sent and the message is clear. The act of Christian preaching is now a potential criminal offense.

Street preaching has a long and well-recognized history in Great Britain. Indeed, preachers of every sort are hardly alone in continuing Britain’s tradition of public rhetoric, seen quintessentially at “Speakers’ Corner” in London’s famed Hyde Park. Dale McAlpine of Wokington in Cumbria has been preaching on the streets for years. The 42-year-old preacher, a Baptist, was arrested after telling a passerby that homosexuality is a sin.

According to THE TELEGRAPH [London], McAlpine had been preaching from atop a stepladder. He also passed out tracts explaining the Ten Commandments. Later, he was involved in a discussion with a woman who wanted to “engage him in a debate about his faith.”

From THE TELEGRAPH:

During the exchange, he says he quietly listed homosexuality

among a number of sins referred to in 1 Corinthians, including

blasphemy, fornication, adultery and drunkenness. After the

woman walked away, she was approached by a PCSO [Police Community

Support Officer] who spoke with her briefly and then walked over

to Mr. McAlpine and told him a complaint had been made, and that

he could be arrested for using racist or homophobic language.

The street preacher said he told the PCSO: “I am not homophobic

but sometimes I do say that the Bible says homosexuality is a

crime against the Creator”.

The police officer, identified in the news report as a homosexual and as the “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender liaison officer” for the local police department, then identified himself to Dale McAlpine. The preacher responded, “It’s still a sin.”

He then preached a sermon on a range of issues that did not include homosexuality. The paper reports, “Three regular uniformed police officers arrived during the address, arrested Mr. McAlpine and put him in the back of a police van.”

He was arrested under Britain’s “Public Order Act,” which, the paper reports, “has been used to arrest religious people in a number of similar cases.” The law allows the arrest and prosecution of anyone who, with intent to harass or cause harm, uses “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour.”

In this case, the simple act of stating in public that homosexuality is a sin was enough to get this preacher arrested. He is not the first. THE TELEGRAPH also reported that Harry Hammond, a lay preacher, was convicted in 2002 for holding a sign that read “Stop Homosexuality. Stop Lesbianism. Jesus is Lord” as he preached in Bournemouth, near Southampton.

The arrest of Dale McAlpine is attracting some degree of international media attention, but the case represents far more than a media spectacle. This arrest is a clear sign that the logic of “hate speech” laws and similar rules and campus codes runs into direct collision with religious liberty and the freedom of religious speech.

THE TELEGRAPH’s report includes the ironic and chilling explanation that Dale McAlpine was arrested for saying that homosexuality is a sin and for doing so “in a voice loud enough to be heard by others.” Is not the purpose of any speaker to be heard by others? Are we to assume that the British police would suggest that Dale McAlpine hold fast to his beliefs, but mutter them only under his breath?

He is being defended in court by the Christian Institute, a group that monitors such cases and offers legal counsel. Sam Webster, a solicitor-advocate with the Institute, said, “Yes, the police have a duty to maintain public order but they also have a duty to defend the lawful free speech of citizens. It’s not for police to decide whether Mr. McAlpine’s views are right or wrong.” He continued: “Case law has ruled that the orthodox Christian belief that homosexual conduct is sinful is a belief worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

That may not be true for long, and it may not help Dale McAlpine now. Both the Labour Party and the Liberal Democratic Party have pushed for repeal of language offering some protection for religious speech. The Conservative Party has generally opposed such measures. Will British Christians have this in mind when they vote Thursday in the nation’s general election?

We will soon learn which nations truly believe in religious liberty and freedom of speech. Cases like this are inevitable when the logic of hate speech and special rights for “sexual minorities” prevails.

Do not think for a moment that this troubling development is of consequence only for street preachers in Britain. The signal sent by this kind of arrest reaches right into every church in every nation where a similar logic takes hold.

Yes, we will soon learn which nations honor religious liberty — but we will also soon learn which preachers are determined to honor God’s truth, whatever the cost. Paul’s command to preachers to preach the Word, “in season and out of season” is about more than when preaching is more and less popular. It may well mean preaching the Word, in jail or out of jail.

Just ask Dale McAlpine.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #11810]

The Incremental Acceptance of Homosexuality

“Men do not differ much about what things they will call evils; they differ enormously about what evils they will call excusable,” wrote G.K. Chesterton. A recent societal survey supports the sage social critic's observation.

A poll conducted by The Gallup Organization found that 91 percent of Americans agreed polygamy is wrong. The survey, taken in May, also discovered that 54 percent of respondents believed homosexual behavior to be morally unacceptable.

While homosexual conduct is still frowned on by a majority, it has never been more accepted in the United States. One survey from 1970 found that 84 percent of Americans believed homosexuality to be a “social corruption.” A 30-point favorable shift in just over three decades is significant, perhaps even revolutionary.

While homosexual behavior has made great strides toward societal acceptance in the past few decades, polygamy has not. It would seem that with America's increasing permissiveness toward all things sexual that the practice of multiple marriage partners would also enjoy a favorable shift. That has not been the case.

How has homosexuality, once deemed aberrant by an overwhelming majority of Americans, gained in acceptance while polygamy has remained an anathema to the public at large? To put it bluntly, many in America have allowed themselves to be snookered.

The modern homosexual rights movement began around 1970. Since that time, homosexual activists have made a concerted effort to shape public perception concerning their lifestyle. Judging by the recent Gallup poll, they have been very successful.

One strategy of homosexual activists was to convince society at large that their behavior was a natural proclivity and not a choice. Hence, they began to trumpet that homosexuality was a condition that was genetically determined.

Even though there has never been a single definitive study linking homosexual behavior to biology, activists have insisted their behavior is rooted in genetics. For 30 years, like a broken record, advocates of homosexuality have declared that same-sex attraction is biological. Many in America now accept the assertion without question.

A lie repeated loud enough and long enough will eventually be accepted by some as the truth.

The media has also been complicit in the push to alter the public's perception on homosexuality. In 1987, The New York Times -– America's most influential newspaper –- succumbed to activist pressure and changed its editorial policy and began using the word “gay” to refer to all things homosexual.

While the shift was subtle, it was also effective. “Homosexual” is a precise term that denotes a practice. “Gay” is a softer word that conveys an attitude. Thus, in the media, homosexuality was no longer defined in terms of sexual practice, but rather as a positive and progressive approach to life.

Again, a lie repeated loud enough and long enough will eventually be accepted by some as the truth.

While activists managed to persuade the media to refer to homosexuality in a more positive light, they were at the same time denigrating those who dared suggest that the “gay” lifestyle was not a good lifestyle.

Debate on the issue of homosexuality was not an option for activists. Anyone who took issue with the homosexual rights movement was branded a homophobe and an intolerant bigot. Comparisons to Adolf Hitler were reserved for those who declared homosexuality a moral wrong.

Activists have labeled opponents with slurs for so long that many Americans now believe that opposition to homosexuality is somehow inherently immoral.

Misrepresentations, like lies, repeated loud enough and long enough become accepted by some as the truth.

While homosexual activists have been busy shaping public perception of their lifestyle, there has been no comparable polygamy rights movement. Hence, while both behaviors are aberrant, one has gained in acceptance while the other remains verboten.

To those who have been snookered by homosexual activists and to those who advocate on their behalf, allow me to quote Chesterton again, “Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

Excusing a practice that is morally wrong does not magically transform it into a moral right.

Stories of Those Who Left Homosexuality

John 3:3

Can homosexuals change? A new documentary says “yes” and includes interviews with people who say they've made the switch.

The 48-minute video, dubbed “I Do Exist,” is intended for use as a discussion-starter in churches, schools and universities. It includes the stories of five homosexuals -- three women and two men -- who once were involved in homosexuality but are now heterosexual. Along the way, psychologists and psychiatrists give their thoughts as to why they believe change is possible.

The documentary counters a series of documentaries by homosexual activists, who have had success in recent years with that format. A 1996 documentary called “It's Elementary” sought to promote the discussion of homosexuality in public school classrooms. And this year, “One Wedding and a Revolution” gave a behind-the-scenes look at the push for same-sex “marriage” in San Francisco.

But “I Do Exist” has a much different message and answers those who say change is impossible.

“So many ex-gays are told that they don't exist,” the documentary's producer, Grove City College psychology professor Warren Throckmorton, told Baptist Press. “...I had a client several years ago who had gone from gay to straight who asked if I was going to write about his case, because he knew that the field didn't accept the change process. He said, 'If you do, tell them that I do exist.'“

The documentary's release comes as the issue of same-sex “marriage” dominates the cultural landscape in America. Behind the push for “gay marriage” is the belief that homosexuality is natural and unchangeable.

Greg Quinlan, one of the ex-homosexuals featured in the documentary, says that change wasn't an “easy thing to do.” Now married, Quinlan credits his Christian faith for bringing him out of homosexuality.

“You can change. I changed,” Quinlan says in the documentary. “... I know that people can change. I've seen it happen. I've done it.”

Prior to coming out of homosexuality, Quinlan says he was “miserable.” At one point he approached a Christian counselor only to be told that there was “no hope” to change.

“What I was reading in the Word is not what I was hearing from this man who was supposed to be a born-again Christian counselor,” says Quinlan, who was a homosexual for nine years.

Ironically, one of the ex-homosexuals featured in the documentary, Noe Gutierrez Jr., was featured in the pro-homosexuality documentary “It's Elementary” during his time as a homosexual.

Gutierrez says his “gay story” began in high school when he was seeking to fit in with the rest of the guys his age. He “discovered a way to connect with them emotionally” through homosexuality.

“There's such a huge drive to define yourself when you're growing up ... you really want to know who you are and you want to be sure of that,” Gutierrez said. “...I was dying for that. I needed that.”

Eventually, Gutierrez discovered what Scripture has to say about God's love. Gutierrez's faith was the difference in his change.

“I can't think of a better foundation than the Word of God and what it has to say about who you are,” Gutierrez said.

Throckmorton, who serves as an associate professor of psychology at Grove City College -- a Christian school in Pennsylvania -- estimates that at least 200 churches have viewed the documentary. He also knows of schools and universities -- both religious and non-religious -- that have watched it.

Sacrificing Science: Hardwired For Homosexuality?

By now, you've no doubt heard about the latest attempt to use biology to justify homosexuality. It started as an attempt to prove the existence of human pheromones: chemicals, that is, associated with sexual attraction in animals. Swedish scientists exposed men and women to possible male and female pheromones, respectively. When women were exposed to male pheromones, their “hypothalamuses lit up.” Likewise, male hypothalamuses reacted when exposed to female pheromones.

Now, to put it in lay terms, this is the “smell test.” Males sniffed women and were attracted, and vice versa. But gay men were exposed to both types of odors, and they were aroused by men, not females.

At this point, what the research suggests is that human pheromones may indeed exist. But what caused the preferences — nature or nurture — is not known. You wouldn't know that, however, from media accounts. It sounds like homosexuality is “hardwired”: the product of nature, not nurture. Time magazine and the New York Times both quoted Dean Hamer of NIH, who wrote a book on the “gay gene,” saying that the study “clearly substantiates” the existence of that “hardwiring.”

It's true that Time magazine explicitly states that the study “doesn't show that ... sexual preference is biologically hardwired.” But it immediately undermines that assertion by relegating those who don't believe in such hardwiring as belonging to the “religious right.”

Someone else who couldn't wait to herald the study as a breakthrough is Steven Pinker of Harvard. Pinker is the author of The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature. Like Time, Pinker begins in a major NEW YORK TIMES op-ed by noting that the differences in brain response don't “prove that homosexuality is innate,” but he ends by invoking those scary religious types. Along the way, he acknowledges the obvious: “Any genetic tendency to avoid heterosexual opportunities should have been selected out long ago.”

Of course — any gene that led men to prefer men as sexual partners would have led to the extinction of its carriers. In Darwinist terms, homosexuality is “evolutionarily maladaptive.” Given this tension between evolutionary biology and the requirements of political correctness, Pinker is forced to speculate about what, if anything, could reconcile the two.

So he repeats the word perhaps over and over, and then he skates around the question of Darwinism and morality — a minefield, by the way, for Darwinists — and then, of all things, suggests a possible evolutionary cause for “homophobia.” If you're confused, you're not the only one. Pinker's floundering is what happens when you are trying to please two equally jealous gods.

Ironically, such a conundrum isn't necessary. Neuroscientists have long known that the connection between the brain and human behavior is a two-way street. The patterns observed in the hypothalamuses of gay men are just as likely to be an effect of their sexuality as a cause of it.

Now, both the Times and Time noted this — and yet they couldn't resist running with the “gay gene” angle. Likewise, they know that a genetic predisposition, if one exists, to behave a certain way isn't a moral license.

But when it comes to “gay rights,” none of this seems to matter. Instead, they commit the same offense they accuse Christians of committing: sacrificing science on the altar of ideology.

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World In Decline

Romans 1

Sermon in Romans series, #2 Romans 1:21-32

WORLD IN DECLINE

================

I. It ended with a bang.

A. The example of Pompeii.

B. Larger question - why did Roman Empire collapse?

II. Moral decline is nothing new.

A. Paul's stunning denunciation of pagan sin in Romans 1.

B. Trends in modern America.

C. The current dividing line - homosexuality.

III. Liberal arguments in support of acceptance of homosexuality.

A. Science trumps Scripture.

B. Bible itself is capable of different interpretations.

(Genesis 19, Leviticus 18:22, 1 Corinthians 6:9-11)

IV. Does it really matter?

A. Liberal mindset - acceptance is inevitable.

B. Conservatives - the ramifications will be real.

C. Where do your values come from?

V. Approving can be worse than committing.

A. Is last verse anticlimactic? Rom 1:32

B. When values leave, the floodgates open.

VI. How to stem moral decline.

A. It is possible for societies to be reformed.

B. Laws will not determine the issue.

C. Changing people - me and you - will determine the issue.

D. Christians must set an example.

The Wisdom To Know the Difference: Is Sexual Identity Malleable?

You see them at night in big cities: men dressed up as women, complete with makeup, jewelry, and high heels. Despite their best efforts, it's not a pretty sight. Nor is the sight of men who take a more drastic step: undergoing so-called sex-reassignment surgery.

When these surgeries were first performed at Johns Hopkins University in the early seventies, one psychiatrist — Paul McHugh — started asking questions about the wisdom of this. After all, the outcomes were not women, but grotesque caricatures of them.

When McHugh became psychiatrist-in-chief in 1975, he decided to test the claim that men who underwent sex-change surgery were psychologically better off. He also wanted to study the outcomes of sex-reassignment surgeries performed on baby boys with ambiguous genitals.

So McHugh encouraged the research of a colleague, psychiatrist Jon Meyer, who was following up men who received sex-change operations. Meyer found that most of the patients he located did not regret their surgery. But in every other respect, McHugh writes, “they were little changed in their psychological condition. They had much the same problems with relationships, work, and emotions as before [the surgery].”

“I concluded,” he wrote, “that Hopkins was fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness.” Wouldn't it be better, he thought, to concentrate of fixing their minds instead of taking the far more drastic step of re-arranging their genitals? Thanks to the research of Meyer and others, it became possible to do just that — to make sense of the mental disorders that were driving the request for the surgeries.

McHugh then turned to the practice of sex-reassignment surgery for baby boys with ambiguous genitals. For years doctors had told parents that that their child's sexual identity would conform to environmental conditioning: They would happily grow up as girls.

But a study found exactly the opposite. These re-engineered boys endured “prolonged distress and misery.” When they discovered their true genetic heritage, most of them began to live as males.

Given that there's no evidence that sex reassignment surgery helps either adults or children, why did doctors recommend it in the first place? The answer is that psychiatrists were enamored of the feminist theory that sexual identity was determined, not by biology, but by cultural conditioning. Psychiatrists went along with this, despite the fact that animal research had long shown that male sexual behavior is directly derived from exposure to testosterone in utero. And so, today, the transgendered movement is firmly protected by rigid codes of political correctness. You're a “bigot” if you say that a person is made a certain way and can't change his gender.

Well, thanks to this research, Johns Hopkins no longer performs sex-reassignment surgeries. But trendy ideologies are being used to argue for a host of feminist causes — like women in combat. When you hear them, tell people about the psychiatrist who took on the ideologies and proved that gender isn't a preference or a choice. These psychiatrists found out, indeed, that human nature can't be manipulated, that the Bible was right all along: We are made male and female in His image.

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Pompeii Equals Sodom

Jude 1:7

In 1885, August Mau discovered an ancient inscription reading “SODOM GOMOR” on the wall of a house in Pompeii. Ancient people saw Pompeii's destruction as an object lesson for God's judgment of sexual decadence. By the 1800's, the ancient world's freer attitude about sexual freedom came to be celebrated by artists, authors, and early homosexual-rights activists.

Today the ruined city is a favorite travel destination for homosexuals.

Beyond Desire: Finding the Good Life In God's Design

How do you find the good life? Our culture gives us one answer: Do what feels right. Our own desires should have the last word; only by indulging them can we achieve true happiness. It may not always be stated that openly, but that's the essential message being fed to us from the time we're old enough to understand.

The problem is that most people living that way are completely miserable. Randy Thomas is a good example. I tell Randy's story in my new book, The Good Life.

Randy was thirteen when he learned the term homosexual and what it meant. In this, he thought he'd finally found his true identity. Dominated by an abusive stepfather, Randy had always longed for male attention. In high school, he began a double life, secretly visiting gay bars nearly every night and indulging in sex, drugs, and alcohol.

Even at that age, Randy could discern certain patterns among his new friends. Older men craved the youth of their sexual partners; younger ones longed for older authority figures. Old and young alike, he observed, were really attracted to extensions of themselves. But while he recognized this as narcissism, Randy hoped to find a relationship that would transcend it — someone he could truly love and grow old with. Instead, he found only transient sexual encounters and his mother's rejection when she discovered his secret life.

For years Randy drifted from relationship to relationship, living with friends and spending almost everything he had on partying. Then a friend's invitation to a Bible study led to the turning point in Randy's life. It was not only the first time he had heard God described as a loving Father, it was also the first time he had seen so many couples who truly complemented each other and were contented together. The husbands and wives Randy observed didn't have the desperation he had seen in his gay friends. They were focused on giving themselves to each other and to their children, rather than constantly seeking self-gratification.

Over time, Randy began to understand what healthy relationships looked like. And that experience was the key to Randy's decision to receive Christ in his life. He eventually left behind his addiction to alcohol and drugs and underwent counseling and reparative therapy.

Today, Randy no longer identifies himself as a gay man, and he's started to find himself attracted to women. Despite the occasional troubling moment of same-sex attraction (a common experience for those recovering from any deeply ingrained disorder — ask any alcoholic), Randy has found his life and relationships transformed.

People like Randy, who recover from homosexuality, aren't supposed to exist — or, if they do, we shouldn't celebrate them. Admittedly, his story isn't politically correct, and even repeating his observations on the gay lifestyle is enough to get anybody in trouble. The “do what feels right” myth is so pervasive and so powerful. But Randy's story needs to be told, because it so clearly illustrates just how false that myth is and what happens when our behavior runs up against the way we are designed: It just can't work. You see, only through following the design of the created order, what we Christians know to be God's plan, can we truly find the good life.

________

Taking the Plunge: A Case of Incest

In 1997, Wisconsin officials, acting on reports of an abandoned child, got more than they bargained for: not only did the child show signs of extreme neglect, she turned out to be the product of an incestuous marriage between siblings.

In addition to terminating Allen and Patricia Muth's parental rights, Wisconsin tried and convicted them of criminal incest. Since the Muths didn't challenge the facts of the case, you would think that settled the matter. But it didn't.

Both at trial and on appeal, the Muth's challenged the constitutionality of the Wisconsin law. That's right: they argued that there's a constitutional right to incest. While this may sound shocking, it shouldn't be surprising, not if you take the Supreme Court at its word.

Two years ago, in Lawrence V. Texas, which overturned Texas' law against sodomy, Justice Kennedy didn't say that there was a fundamental right to homosexual sodomy. He did something even worse: he wrote that people are “free as adults to engage in private conduct in the exercise of their liberty under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.”

Kennedy said that these adults “are entitled to respect for their private lives” and that “the State cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime.”

Justice Scalia warned, in a blistering dissent, that the case language would encompass any consensual sexual practice, including incest or polygamy. And that's exactly what the Muth's lawyers argued — first before the Wisconsin Supreme Court and then before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Earlier this summer, the Seventh Circuit rejected Muth's argument, thankfully, but only because Judge Daniel Manion said that Lawrence didn't apply only because this case “did not [specifically] address the constitutionality of incest statutes.” Legal scholar Matthew Franck wrote that this is “true but trivial.” The issue is whether Lawrence's reasoning should be applied to cases not involving homosexuality.

Given Kennedy's sweeping rhetoric about “private lives” and demeaning someone's existence, the answer would appear to be “yes.” Substitute “incestuous” for “homosexual” in Kennedy's opinion and its meaning remains exactly the same. And, as Kennedy wrote, “profound and deep convictions” about the immorality of a practice isn't a constitutionally-sufficient reason to criminalize that practice.

Some believe that Judge Manion knew this and ruled against the Muths on other grounds because Manion “would rather someone other than himself,” preferably, the Supreme Court, commit such a travesty.

No one is sure what the Supreme Court will actually do with the Muth's case. If it follows Kennedy's logic in Lawrence, however, it will declare incest constitutional — so we may be only one case away from this moral horror.

This is why the upcoming confirmation process is so important. Today, all that stands between us and the logical inevitability of the protection of incest is one more vote in the High Court.

________

Surprising Numbers: the Truth About Sex In America

The United States government has just released a nation-wide survey on Americans' private sexual habits. The New York Times describes it as disclosing “surprising numbers for same-sex activity.”

SURPRISING is the right word, but not in the way I suspect the New York Times means.

The study was done by the National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among other statistics, the study indicates that only about 4 percent of men and women consider themselves to be homosexual or bisexual.

Indeed, among men ages 18 to 44, 90 percent call themselves heterosexual, 2 percent homosexual, 2 percent bisexual, and 4 percent something else. Among women, 86 percent are attracted only to men, and 10 percent “mostly” to males.

In both cases it is a long way from the 10 percent that the homosexual lobby has advanced for years. We are told that homosexual behavior is simply a choice and that we're bigoted if we do not believe it to be the norm. But any time you look at statistics and find less than 10 percent engaging in a particular activity, it is contrary to the norm. The norm is what the 90 percent does.

There are profound social consequences here. If sexual orientation is a choice, then we're free to choose. But this study implies that we're wired a certain way, for heterosexual relationships.

As philosopher J. Budziszewski says, there are some things we “can't not know.” One of those things is that we're biologically made a certain way: males one way and females another. That's the way the world works, and it's the only natural way to conceive children.

And when you go against the way the world is made, you're going against the grain of the universe. And no amount of propaganda or clever marketing, which is what it is, can change the unalterable facts of the natural moral order. It's time we recognize that and stop being bullied by special interests.

But there's a second part of the study that is worth noting: What in the world is the federal government doing investing tax dollars in studying the intimate personal sex habits of Americans? This might be a good thing for some private foundation to fund, but the government?

The only basis on which it can be justified is that it relates to health. Was the purpose to show us that certain sexual behaviors are unhealthy? If that's what we are being shown, that's a legitimate conclusion for scientists to make with federal dollars.

Otherwise, I can think of better ways to use our federal tax dollars. Friday, for example, I was at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where we mourned the loss of hundreds of Americans in the flood of New Orleans. The president and the nation have made a commitment to rebuild the Gulf Coast. I don't know about you, but I would sure rather spend my money on that than I would probing into personal lives.

But whether we should have spent the money this way or not, we do now have the report. It does show us something that needs to be understood in American life. It has a profound impact on the political and cultural debates of our day in ways that I'm sure does indeed surprise the staff of the New York Times.

________

The Inescapable Issue of Biblical Authority

Romans 1:18

Every important issue in the church essentially comes down to the authority of the Bible. The debate over the election of the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop is a prime example of this inescapable fact -- and a closer look at the arguments reveals the lengths to which homosexual activists must go in order the neutralize the Bible in the debate.

The Bible condemns homosexuality in every form. This message is not hidden, complicated, or nuanced. The Old Testament texts detail the sin of Sodom and the prohibitions against homosexual activity. The New Testament is equally clear, and offers a more expansive explanation. In Romans 1:18-28, the Apostle Paul explains that both male and female homosexuality are evidence of the extreme evil of human sin. Homosexual acts -- and homosexual passions -- are “degrading” and “unnatural,” and those who perform such “indecent” acts are “receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” Of course, Paul instructs us that all are sinners, but homosexuality leads his catalogue of human sinfulness. No ambiguity here.

In 1 Corinthians 6:9-10, Paul warns that persons who give themselves to such sins will not inherit the kingdom of God, making specific mention of both passive and active partners in a homosexual act. The Apostle's candor is bracing, and we should be thankful for his clarity.

Of course, homosexual activists and liberal theologians have been hard at work undermining the authority of these texts [and all other texts dealing with limitations on sexual behavior]. We should look carefully at their maneuvers, for they reveal the most tragic nature of their rebellion -- a rebellion against the Creator and His Word.

Bishop-Elect Gene Robinson, basking in the media attention directed at him as the church's first gay bishop, dismissed the Bible as essentially irrelevant: “Just simply to say that it [homosexuality] goes against tradition and the teaching of Scripture does not necessarily make it wrong.” Oh, no? Just what must be added to the Bible's teaching in order to make it wrong? The bishop-elect explained that Christians “worship a living God and that living God leads us into truth.” But according to Robinson's logic, God would lead us away from His own Word.

The case for legitimizing homosexuality rests on the assumption that morality is constantly changing and that we have now “matured” into a new era of sexual license and liberation. The biblical writers are hopelessly outdated and repressed.

Retired Episcopal Bishop John Shelby Spong went so far as to accuse the Apostle Paul of being a repressed homosexual. Poor chap, if he only had Spong for a pastor, he would learn not to repress anything.

The advocates of homosexuality have only two plays in their playbook when it comes to the Bible. They must either deny that the Bible has any authority in this debate, or they must present some kind of ridiculous interpretation of the biblical text that comes down to claiming that the text doesn't mean what it means. Most of the gay theorists use both plays in their arguments -- and sometimes both at once.

In a fascinating [and tragic] interview broadcast on the BBC World Service [listen to program], the Bishop of Hereford, John Oliver, acknowledged that the Bible is very clear about its “explicit condemnation” of homosexual behavior. But, referring to the Leviticus text, Bishop John explained that the Jewish people “were under tremendous pressure” to make themselves distinct from their pagan neighbors. No bother to us, for Bishop John does not believe that “we need to take this seriously as a text which guides us today.”

What about the Apostle Paul in Romans? Here the bishop argues that Paul is only concerned about “frivolous homosexual acts by persons who are basically heterosexual.”

How clever! The Apostle just wants heterosexuals to be heterosexual.

Gay theorists argue that Paul, along with the other biblical writers, simply knew nothing about a homosexual orientation, and simply assumed that God wants all persons to restrict sexual activity to heterosexual marriage.

Of course, Paul assumed that God restricts all genital activity to the holy context of heterosexual marriage. That is the plain, unambiguous, and transparent teaching of Scripture. The modern idea of a “sexual orientation” is just a fig leaf constructed by sinners to cover for their sin. It is reinforced by the therapeutic regime and now taken for granted by the secular culture.

By this twisted logic, Paul would warn that it would be sin for homosexuals to commit heterosexual acts, just as it is sin for heterosexuals to commit homosexual acts. The perversity of this argument is plain. The tragic fact is that this argument has taken hold of the liberal elites in mainline Protestantism. In Anglicanism, this problem starts at the top.

Rowan Williams, the current Archbishop of Canterbury, has written of what he calls “the body's grace.” Sounding more than a little panentheistic, the archbishop argues that we should listen to the body's desires as as we struggle to find human meaning. [Preach that to your local “True Love Waits” rally.] Arguments against homosexuality based on the Bible, limiting sexual behavior to procreative heterosexuality, “must rely either on an abstract fundamentalist deployment of a number of very ambiguous texts, or on a problematic and non-scriptural theory about natural complementarity, applied narrowly and crudely to physical differentiation without regard to psychological structures.” Disgusted yet?

What the archbishop means is this: We just have to get over taking the Bible seriously when it comes to sex. The biblical authors are mired in outdated understandings of sex and hopelessly repressed. The church must move on to a brave new future of sexual liberation. Homosexuals are to be liberated today; someone else will be liberated tomorrow. Just claim your sexual preference as an “orientation” and claim that God made you this way. Remember, as Bishop-elect Robinson argues, just because the Bible says it's wrong doesn't make it wrong. And, even when it looks like the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, it really means the opposite. The church has simply misunderstood the Bible for 2,000 years.

Of course, if the Bible is really the Word of God, the entire argument for normalizing homosexuality collapses. The ultimate author of Scripture is God Himself. The Holy Spirit inspired every word of the Bible, and every word is fully inspired. If the Bible is not God's Word, then the church is indeed sexually repressed and intolerant. On the other hand, if the Bible is the Word of God, homosexual activists have given themselves to a sin which leads to eternal death.

Christians take careful note: A church or denomination that compromises the Word of God and denies biblical authority will eventually lose all theological sanity. A church that elects a Bishop John Oliver will eventually elect a Bishop Gene Robinson. And Archbishop Rowan Williams, committed to “the body's grace” rather than the clear teaching of Scripture, is in no position to lead his church back to sanity.

Homosexuality In Theological Perspective, Part 2 of 4

Jude 1:7

The issue of homosexuality is a “first-order” theological issue as it presents itself in the current cultural debate. Fundamental truths essential to the Christian faith are at stake in this confrontation. These truths range from basic issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God's purpose and prerogatives in creation, sin, salvation, sanctification and, by extension, the entire body of evangelical divinity.

Put bluntly, if the claims put forward by the homosexual movement are true, the entire system of the Christian faith is compromised, and some essential truths will fall.

Lest this be seen as an overstatement, consider the issue of biblical authority and inspiration. If the claims of revisionist exegetes are valid, then the very notions of verbal inspiration and biblical inerrancy are invalidated. But the challenge is yet deeper, for if, as the revisionist interpreters claim, Holy Scripture can be so wrong and misdirected on this issue (to which it speaks so unambiguously), the evangelical paradigm of biblical authority cannot stand.

As is the case with most ideological campaigns directed to the church, the homosexual movement comes complete with a well-defined hermeneutic. In fact, politico-ideological crusades which aspire for influence within the churches must develop and articulate what I will term a hermeneutic of legitimation, designed to provide at least the appearance of biblical sanction. Thus, biblical interpretation becomes contested territory between rival worldviews.

The homosexual movement has employed a well-documented hermeneutic suspicion toward biblical texts which address homosexuality. Their efforts have been to prove that the actions proscribed in biblical passages (notably Genesis 19 and Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13) do not refer to consensual homosexual acts, but to homosexual rape and prostitution. Or, when this effort is crushed on the shores of reality, to suggest that though the passages do speak of homosexual acts, they reveal a patriarchal and oppressive bias that must be rejected by the contemporary church. Furthermore, it is commonly argued, Paul did not know of the reality of homosexual orientation, and thus Romans 1:26-27 must be read as if it referred to homosexual acts on the part of otherwise heterosexual persons.

The net result of this hermeneutic of legitimation has been confusion in the churches. It has become the standard and politically correct perspective assumed in most sectors of the academy, and it is increasingly prevalent among members of the mainline Protestant denominations. Disappointingly, a number of evangelicals have been taken in as well.

An early attempt at revising the church's view of homosexuality was undertaken by D. Sherwin Bailey in “Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition,” but the most influential work came 25 years later with the publication of “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality” by John Boswell, a professor of history at Yale University. Similar proposals have come from figures such as John J. McNeill, a former Jesuit expelled from the order for his views on homosexuality. The most significant recent contribution to this debate is L. William Countryman's “Dirt, Sex, and Greed.”

The revisionist hermeneutic, as applied to Romans 1:26-27, has been employed to argue that the text means something quite different from the church's traditional interpretation. By employing circumventions, circumlocutions, and contortions, the text's meaning is revised so as to negate its judgment upon homosexuality.

The critical issue used as a hermeneutical device by the revisionists is the concept of sexual orientation. The modern “discovery” of sexual orientation is used to deny the truth claim clearly and inescapably made within the biblical text. For example, in regard to the Romans text, Janet Fishburn of Drew University Theological School argues: “Yet, some biblical scholars point out that this passage can only refer to the homosexual acts of heterosexual persons. This is because the writers of the Bible did not distinguish between homosexual orientation and same-gender sexual acts. If this distinction is accepted, the condemnation of homosexuality in Romans does not apply to the sexual acts of homosexual persons.”

Similarly, New Testament professor Victor Paul Furnish argued that since Paul was unaware of the modern concept of homosexual orientation, his rejection of homosexuality must itself be rejected: “Not only the terms, but the concepts of 'homosexual,' and 'homosexuality' were unknown in Paul's day. These terms like 'heterosexual,' 'heterosexuality,' 'bisexual' and 'bisexuality,' presuppose an understanding of human sexuality that was possible only with the advent of modern psychology and sociological analysis. The ancient writers were operating without the vaguest idea of what we have learned to call 'sexual orientation.'“

Just how far some are willing to go in an effort to contort the biblical text is made clear by Countryman. Again, the issue is the construct of sexual orientation: “Homosexual orientation has been increasingly recognized in our time as a given of human sexuality. While most people feel some attraction to members of both the same and the opposite sex and, in the majority of these, attraction to the opposite sex dominates, there is a sizable minority for whom sexual attraction to persons of the same sex is a decisive shaping factor of their sexual lives.... To deny an entire class of human beings the right peaceably and without harming others to pursue the kind of sexuality that corresponds to their nature is a perversion of the gospel.”

These statements indicate the general approach taken by revisionist scholarship and the ever-widening scope of the revisionist sweep. The hermeneutic of legitimation has been stunningly effective in forming a culture which accepts homosexual behavior and denies binding authority to clear biblical injunctions. But this trend is not limited to mainline Protestantism and liberal Roman Catholicism. Some who claim evangelical identity also share the same revisionist methodology and conclusions. In an article published in the evangelical journal “TSF Bulletin,” Kathleen E. Corley and Karen J. Torjesen argue that: “It would appear then that in Paul issues of sexuality are theologically related to hierarchy, and therefore the issues of biblical feminism and lesbianism are irrefutably intertwined.... In the end, it would seem that if the church is going to deal with the issues of sexuality it is also going to have to deal with hierarchy. We need to grapple with the possibility that ou r conflicts over the appropriate use of human sexuality may rather be conflicts rooted in a need to legitimate and traditional social structure which assigns men and women specific and unequal positions. Could it be that the continued affirmation of the primacy of heterosexual marriage is possibly also the affirmation of the necessity for the sexes to remain in hierarchically structured relationships? Is the threat to marriage really a threat to hierarch? Is that what makes same-sex relationships so threatening, so frightening?”

The arguments appeal to modern therapeutic constructs such as the hypothetical sexual orientation and use these to call into judgment the meaning of the biblical text. The essence of the complex revisionist arguments comes down to this: either the biblical texts do not proscribe homosexuality, but have been misconstrued by an oppressive heterosexist and patriarchal church to deny homosexuals their rights; or, the biblical texts do proscribe homosexuality, but are oppressive, heterosexists, and patriarchal in themselves, and thus must be rejected or radically re-interpreted in order to remove the scandal of oppression.

What must be transparently clear by now is that these revisionist methodologies and hermeneutics of legitimation deny the truth status of Holy Scripture. The passages are not merely re-interpreted in light of clear historical-grammatical exegesis -- they are subverted and denied by implication and direct assault. But few revisionists are as direct in their assault as William M. Kent, a member of the United Methodist Committee to Study Homosexuality. Kent asserted that “the scriptural texts in the Old and New Testaments condemning homosexual practice are neither inspired by God nor otherwise of enduring Christian value. Considered in the light of the best biblical, theological, scientific, and social knowledge, the biblical condemnation of homosexual practice is better understood as representing time and place bound cultural prejudice.”

But Kent is not alone. From the theological academy, Robin Scoggs puts his position plainly: “Quite clearly ... I cannot in conscience accept the view that makes biblical injunctions into necessarily eternal ethical truths, independent of the historical and cultural context.” Strikingly, Gary David Comstock, university Protestant chaplain at Wesleyan University argues: “Not to recognize, critique, and condemn Paul's equation of godlessness with homosexuality is dangerous. To remain within our respective Christian traditions and not challenge those passages that degrade and destroy us is to contribute to our own oppression.... Those passages will be brought up and used against us again and again until Christians demand their removal from the biblical canon or, at the very least, formally discredit their authority to prescribe behavior.”

Evangelicals must lay bare the nature of this assault on the integrity and authority of the biblical text. Christianity stands or falls upon the validity and integrity of the revelation-claim made by Holy Scripture. This challenge must be met directly and publicly, and evangelicals must call the exegetical bluff put forward by the revisionists. The foundational assault must be addressed. The confessing church must not be intimidated, coerced or compromised by the revisionists.

As theologian Elizabeth Achtemeier asserted: “The clearest teaching of Scripture is that God intended sexual intercourse to be limited to the marriage relationship of one man and one woman.” A clear reminder of what is at stake comes, interestingly enough, from Robin Lane Fox, a secular historian: “As for homosexuality, Paul and the other apostles agreed with the accepted Jewish view that it was deadly sin which provoked God's wrath. It led to earthquakes and natural disasters, which were evident in the fate of Sodom. The absence of Gospel teaching on the topic did not amount to tacit approval. All orthodox Christians knew that homosexuals went to Hell until a modern minority tried to make them forget it.”

Of course, “all orthodox Christians” knew that all unrepentant and unredeemed sinners go to Hell, and unrepentant homosexuals were in a very large company. But only in modern times have revisionists tried to suggest with seriousness that the Bible is unclear on the issue of homosexuality and that the church must forfeit its traditional -- and exegetically inescapable -- understanding of the relevant biblical texts. The “modern minority” identified by Fox has been, nonetheless, stunningly successful in confusing the Church.

Darkness At Noon: The Commission of A Post-Compliant Church

Hebrews 12

As the late Allan Bloom noted, a mind resolutely determined to be absolutely open is often, in actuality, quite closed. The closing of the postmodern mind will present a challenge for the church in this post-Christian age. Swirling worldviews and a reflexive relativism come together to form a mentality often closed to all substantive truth claims. Gathering clouds of darkness and the eclipse of truth present the believing church with a great challenge – will we surrender in a spirit of cultural compliance?

We must recognize that the church has been compliant for far too long, and if we are effectively to challenge the prevailing worldview of postmodern culture, the church must become a POST-compliant people. What will it take for Christians in this generation to be awakened out of complacency and compliance? If we are complacent in this culture, if we are compliant in the face of its demands and expectations, then there will be no preaching of the gospel. There will be no authentic church. There will be no authentic Christian witness. We will withdraw into our Christian cave, and we will cower there. We will not witness, we will not work -- we will simply retreat.

A recent debate between Robert Audi and Nicholas Wolterstorff is very revealing. In a book entitled RELIGION IN THE PUBLIC SQUARE, Robert Audi takes the secular argument -- which is the prevalent position in the academy -- and argues that Christians have no right to make Christian arguments in the public square. It is fine for Christians to make ARGUMENTS, he says; they just cannot show up AS CHRISTIANS. Following in the work of the philosopher John Rawls, Audi goes so far as to say that when we enter the public square, we must bring with us a purely SECULAR RATIONALE. In other words, any argument we make must be essentially and purely secular, and such arguments are to be motivated by secular concerns ALONE. They cannot even be spiritually MOTIVATED.

Think about what this means on the issue of homosexuality and homosexual marriage, to take just one example. I believe historians will one day point to this issue as the catalyst for a great and lamentable cultural revolution in America. The world will be categorically different the moment homosexual marriage is normalized in this country. Then we will find out how many Christians there are. We will find out how many churches there are. Who is going to recognize these same-sex unions? Who is going to solemnize these same-sex unions? Not the faithful church of the Lord Jesus Christ! Any church that would normalize and celebrate what Scripture condemns has set itself in direct opposition to revelation, reason, and the witness of the martyrs. Those who gave their lives for the sake of the Gospel did not do so in a spirit of cultural compliance.

Think for a moment about this issue of same-sex marriage in the context of Audi's SECULAR RATIONALE. I was in Washington recently and heard a presentation in which a very well-informed person -- one of the nation's leading researchers on the issues of the day, said, “Look, we have to understand that we are not going to be able to bring God into the same-sex marriage debate. We are not going to be able to use spiritual and biblical arguments, so you Christian people are just going to have to understand that.” I was up next to speak, so I said in response, “Here is everything I know about marriage apart from God – nothing of binding significance. Now that that is out of the way, I can tell you that everything I know about marriage, everything I know about sex, everything I know about gender, everything I know about homosexuality, I know from the Word of God. That is all I know. That is all I CAN know, and I am not going to NOT talk about it. And if we lose this battle while preaching the Scriptures, then brothers and sisters, we lose gloriously!”

There are many who will say that what must be pressed in this debate over same-sex marriage are the deleterious social effects of undermining marriage – and leave all theologically-based arguments out of the picture. That argument, however, is not only wrong in principle, it is a pragmatic failure. We will never get anywhere with that, because the people driving the movement for normalizing homosexuality really aren't primarily concerned about those issues. A culture that will compromise itself into accepting homosexual marriage will never really be convinced by such arguments. In the final analysis, all we have is the authority of the Word of God. We Christians are the world's most eccentric people in a postmodern age. We are committed to a faith that is structured by a book that is two thousand years old. Beyond eccentric, we are increasingly seen as DANGEROUS. A people who live by the light of an ancient book – and who dare to call it the very Word of God – will look exceedingly dangerous to the prevailing worldviews of this age.

The entire biblical truth claim is under assault in today's culture. We see the tightening grip in the tenacity of all this onslaught. We see a culture that increasingly loves darkness rather than the light. We can see the logic of the culture, and we can see that the church has been compliant too long. Thus, when we turn to Hebrews chapter 12, we are confronted with an exhortation that instructs is that the reality must be different for us. The prophet Joel warned of that apocalyptic day of judgment that is coming -- a day when the sun will turn to darkness and the moon will be turned to blood. In Hebrews 12, we are confronted with another warning of judgment -- this time addressed to the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The writer of Hebrews writes of two mountains, Mount Sinai and Mount Zion. One represents the covenant of old, and the other represents the New Covenant in Christ. Sinai represents thunder and shaking and fear; Zion represents the festive joy of the people of God in the work of Christ, in the Kingdom of the Redeemer.

In this passage, we are also told of a shaking that is about to come. In Hebrews 12:26, the author quotes from the prophet Haggai in chapter 2, verses 6-7: “For thus says the Lord of hosts: 'Yet once more, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land. And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the Lord of hosts.'“ Then the writer of Hebrews picks up by saying. “This phrase, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of things that are shaken -- that is, things that have been made -- in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain.” (Hebrews 12:27)

We are now in a time of shaking, and there is more shaking yet to come. As we read the book of Hebrews, this too is pointing towards an eschatological shaking and sifting. But just as in Joel, there is both an eschatological and a present application. There is a shaking now happening in this generation, and this shaking will be followed by more and more violent shaking yet. We are about to see what remains and what falls. In this time of shifting and sifting and shaking, we are going to be tested, and we are going to find out what we are made of.

Look at Hebrews 12:28: “Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire.” Let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Yes, there is a whole lot of shaking going on! But there is one kingdom that cannot be shaken, and that is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What does that kingdom look like? It is certainly a kingdom of victory, but it is sometimes a victory that doesn't look to observers like victory. Look at Hebrews 11:32: “And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets -- who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated -- of whom the world was not worthy -- wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.” (Hebrews 11:32-38)

I think it is fair to say that to the casual, outside observer, this picture does not look much like victory. But in the eyes of faith, it doesn't get any more victorious than what this passage declares. We don't get to choose our times. We don't get to choose our challenges. We didn't choose to live in a post-Christian age. We didn't choose to confront the postmodern mind, but this is where we are, and it is time that we become a post-compliant church. While all is shaking and shaken around us, the one thing that cannot be shaken is the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ, and this kingdom is visible in His church.

In a post-Christian age, confronted with the challenge of the postmodern mind, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is called to be a post-compliant people. Anything less is just another form of spiritual surrender.

________

This is an edited transcript of an address given to the faculty and students of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Sexual Confusion and the End of Friendship

Nominations for the 63rd annual Golden Globe Awards were announced Tuesday, and the movie identified as a “cowboy romance” has taken the lead with seven nominations. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as two cowboys linked in a homosexual romance, has been nominated for Best Motion Picture Drama, Best Actor in a Drama, Best Director, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Score and Best Song. Already, critics are predicting that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is the leading candidate to be chosen as Best Picture at the upcoming Academy Awards ceremony.

Directed by Ang Lee, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is based on a short story of the same title by author Annie Proulx. The story is quite graphic, depicting an unexpected homosexual romance between two cowboys who find themselves alone in a tent. As the story unfolds, the homosexual relationship is continued even as the two men get married and establish families. The story -- and the movie -- includes explicit sex and depicts the hurt and turmoil experienced by the families of these two men as they periodically take what are described as “fishing trips in which there is no fishing.” Nevertheless, the movie presents the homosexual romance as a relationship to be admired -- insinuating that if our society could be freed of its hang-ups about homosexuality, these two could have gone on to live together happily ever after.

The movie opened in only three cities across the nation, and it is not expected to be a big winner at the box office. But as an indicator of where Hollywood thinks the culture should be headed, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is one of the most celebrated movies among Hollywood critics, the media, and the cultural elites.

In one sense, the real significance of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN doesn't have anything to do with cinematography. Instead, it has everything to do with our culture and the breakdown of sexual order. BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN represents something new in mainstream America -- a celebration of homosexual romance on the big screen. The very fact that this movie stars two relatively well established young actors and has drawn the fawning attention of Hollywood critics indicates that something very serious is afoot. It really will not matter that most Americans are not likely to see this film. Now that this cultural barrier has been broken down, depictions of similar relationships and romances are sure to filter down into popular entertainment -- and quickly.

Anthony Esolen, Professor of English at Providence College in Providence, Rhode Island, warns that this breakdown of the natural sexual order has led to the death of friendship -- particularly to the death of male friendships.

In “A Requiem for Friendship: Why Boys Will Not Be Boys and Other Consequences of the Sexual Revolution,” published in the September 2005 issue of TOUCHSTONE magazine, Esolen begins by reminding readers of a scene from J. R. R. Tolkien's great work, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. Sam Gamgee, having followed his master Frodo into Mordor, the realm of death, finds him in a small filthy cell lying half-conscious. “Frodo! Mr. Frodo, my dear!” Sam cries. “It's Sam, I've come!” Frodo embraces his friend and Sam eventually cradles Frodo's head. As Esolen suggests, a reader or viewer of this scene is likely to jump to a rather perverse conclusion: “What, are they gay?”

Esolen suggests that this question is an “ignorant but inevitable response” to the context. He goes on to recall that Shakespeare and many other great authors spoke of non-sexual love between men in strongest terms. Similarly, when David is told of the death of his friend Jonathan, he cries: “You're love to me was finer than the love of women.”

As Esolen understands, the corruption of language has contributed to this confusion. When words like LOVE, FRIEND, MALE, FEMALE, and PARTNER are transformed in a new sexual context, what was once understood to be pure and undefiled is now subject to sniggering and disrespect.

Esolen insists that this linguistic shift was no accident. He accuses “pansexualists” of corrupting the language in order to normalize sexual confusion and anarchy. They have used language “as a tool for establishing their own order and imposing it on everyone else,” he argues.

As Esolen explains, “The pansexualists -- they who believe in the libertarian dogma that what two consenting adults do with their privates in private is nobody's business -- understand that the language had to be changed to assist the realization of their dream, and also that the realization of their dream would change the world, because it would change the language for everyone else.”

What does all this have to do with the release of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN? “Open homosexuality, loudly and defiantly celebrated, changes the language for everyone,” Esolen insists. “If a man throws his arm around another man's waist, it is now a sign -- whether he is on the political right or the left, whether he believes in biblical proscriptions of homosexuality or not.” Esolen offers a blunt and haunting assessment: “If a man cradles the head of his weeping friend, the shadow of suspicion must cross your mind.”

One of the words and realities most clearly corrupted for the sake of sexual anarchy is friendship -- and male friendship in particular. “For modern American men, friendship is no longer forged in the heat of battle, or in the dust of the plains as they drive their herds across half a continent, or in the choking air of a coalmine, or even in the cigar smoke of a debating club,” Esolen notes. Most men no longer find themselves in situations that encourage and inculcate straightforward male friendships. As Esolen observes, “the sexual revolution has also nearly killed male friendship as devoted to anything beyond drinking and watching sports; and the homosexual movement, a logically inevitable result of forty years of heterosexual promiscuity and feminist folly, bids fair to finish it off and nail the coffin shut.”

What this means for grown men is bad enough, but Esolen is persuasive when he argues that the most vulnerable victims of friendship's demise are boys. “The prominence of male homosexuality changes the language for teenage boys. It is absurd and cruel to say that the boy can ignore it. Even if he would, his classmates will not let him. All boys need to prove that they are not failures. They need to prove that they are on the way to becoming men -- that they are not going to relapse into the need to be protected by, and therefore identified with, their mothers.” So? Esolen argues that boys, deprived of normal recognitions of masculinity and safe friendships with other boys and men, often turn to aggressive sexual promiscuity with girls in order to prove that they are not homosexual. Boys who refuse to play this game are tagged as homosexuals.

Esolen is on to something of incredible importance here. He reminds us all that boys need the uncomplicated camaraderie of other boys in order to negotiate their own path to manhood. The friendships shared among boys and young men allowed them to come together around common interests and activities and to channel their natural curiosity and energy into participation in shared activities. As young males band together, Esolen acknowledges that they “might do a thousand things fascinatingly creative and dangerously destructive.” This is where adults must step in to guide these energies in positive directions and to erect boundaries to prevent or discourage bad behavior. In any event, these boys would not, as Esolen argues many boys do now, stagnate. “They would be alive,” he asserts.

All this requires an uncomplicated heterosexual expectation. Esolen points to the fact that Abraham Lincoln, as a young man, had often shared a bed with his friend Joshua Speed. The two shared letters that spoke of their appreciation and love for each other. Modern readers have jumped to the conclusion that Lincoln must have been a homosexual. Esolen rightly argues that this “evidence” proves exactly the opposite. Lincoln and Speed were free to share a bed together, and to speak of their deep friendship, precisely because they did not fear any revelation of this fact or of their relationship to the public. Why? Because the nearly universal understanding of all homosexual behavior as immoral and deviant created a context in which NO ONE would have had the expectation that Lincoln would be involved in homosexuality. As Esolen explains, “The stigma against sodomy cleared away ample space for an emotionally powerful friendship that did not involve sexual intercourse, exactly as the stigma against incest allows for the physical and emotional freedom of a family.”

In a truly haunting section of his essay, Esolen asked us to imagine a society in which the taboo against incest has been removed. Under such circumstances, no uncle would be free to hug his young niece without an accusation of sexual interest. Relationships between parents and children, brothers and sisters, and relatives of all varieties would be corrupted and undermined by the imposition of sexual suspicion.

As Esolen understands, this is exactly what is happening as homosexuality is normalized in the culture. Normal, non-sexual, fraternal friendships among men now come under suspicion. This is especially true for teenage boys and young men, who are less secure about their manhood and more concerned about their own -- and their peers' -- sexual identity.

The normalization of homosexuality destroys the natural order of friendships among men. “Think about that friendship, the next time you see the perpetual adolescents and feather boas as they march down Main Street, making their sexual proclivities known to everybody whether everybody cares or not,” Esolen instructs. “With every chanted slogan and every blaring sign, they crowd out the words of friendship, they appropriate the healthy gestures of love between man and man. Confess -- has it not left you uneasy even to read the words of that last sentence?”

Of course, we are told that those who hold such concerns are simply providing evidence of their innate homophobia and repressive sexual hang-ups. The critics will celebrate BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, and we can now expect a flood of similar themes, stories, and depictions. Society at large is corrupted by the normalization of homosexuality and the bonds of normal male friendships are weakened, if not destroyed. Remember all this as Hollywood prepares to celebrate its latest cultural “achievement.”

The Challenge of Homosexuality — How Important Is It?

In every generation, the church is faced with a certain test-case, a certain issue which is the clearest barometer of the conviction and biblical commitment of the people of God. The church in Germany, for example, faced this sort of question with the rise of Hitler in the 1930s. Today, the church in America faces a secular regime of unrestrained moral revisionism, especially on the issue of homosexuality.

In 1997, the historian Paul Berman made an interesting argument in A TALE OF TWO UTOPIAS. Looking back at what he called “the gay awakening,” he said this: “We seem to be hearing: 'There are no marshals today -- not on the question of heterosexuality versus homosexuality. On that most crucial and personal of questions, you, each and every one of you, are responsible for yourselves.’ We are hearing: 'Concerning homosexuality, it is forbidden anymore to forbid.'“ Then as now, the general moral principle regarding the issue of homosexuality that rules in the larger culture is this -- IT IS FORBIDDEN TO FORBID. Today, that principle can be applied to almost every dimension of life. It is forbidden to forbid -- except in the areas ruled by political correctness. For it is NOT forbidden to forbid when it comes to the sex codes adopted by so many colleges and universities. That aside, it is forbidden to forbid that which the historic Christian faith has opposed.

The issue of homosexuality is currently the most heated front in the culture war. Homosexual activist groups are pressing for the identification of homosexual men and lesbians as a special class which is granted protections under civil rights legislation. Moreover, it is now commonplace to find homosexual and homoerotic literature in public libraries, and even now in some public schools. The normalization of homosexuality is becoming a social fact.

The larger secular academy has for the most part capitulated to the homosexual movement. Gay studies programs are now a growth industry in academic culture. The mainstream media portray homosexuality in a positive light, and the GLAAD organization (the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) publishes an annual roster of how many homosexual characters are presented in primetime television. That used to be a very short list, but it has grown to be a very long one as network television has pushed the envelope further and further.

Even the older Protestant mainline denominations are currently debating homosexuality, with attention currently focused on the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the ministry and the equivalence of homosexual unions with heterosexual covenantal marriage.

How did this happen? The origins of the homosexual movement as a major cultural force can be traced to the 1969 Stonewall Riots in Manhattan. It was there that the civil rights impetus of the 1960s and the moral radicalism of the far Left coalesced in the identification of homosexuals as a people group denied legal rights and thus deserving of particular protections. The patrons of the Stonewall Bar launched a movement that would become the inaugural symbol of the gay liberation struggle.

What followed has been a measured and strategic effort to win the legitimization of homosexuality, to promote homosexual themes in the media, and to receive special entitlements as a legally protected class. Furthermore, the movement has pressed for specific public policy goals such as the removal of all anti-sodomy laws, the recognition of homosexual partnership as being on par with heterosexual marriage, anti-discrimination laws, and the removal of all barriers to homosexuals in the military, the academy, business, and the churches.

In order to pursue these goals, the homosexual movement has organized itself as a liberation struggle. Based on an ideology of liberation from oppression drawn from Marxism, the intention has been to identify with other liberation movements, including the Civil Rights movement, the feminist agenda, and others. But the goal is not the mere legitimatization of homosexual activity, or even the mere recognition of homosexual relationships. Rather, their goal is the creation of a public homosexual culture within the American mainstream. This movement is a stark challenge to all sectors of the society. It is the driving engine of a social revolution which is now well underway in American life and which affects everything from the family to the state itself.

An evangelical perspective must recognize that such a revolution is itself a direct challenge to the foundations of gender, family, sexuality, and morality, which are some of the central issues of a Christian worldview lived out in the world. Thus, this is a challenge evangelicals cannot fail to meet with both courage and grace.

The homosexual movement did not spring from a vacuum. Indeed, this challenge has emerged from within the context of a culture shift which has transformed Western societies during the twentieth century. The term “culture shift” points to a pattern of fundamental changes which shapes every level of social and cultural life. A culture shift is nothing less than a fundamental re-ordering of the entire society from top to bottom -- ideologies, worldviews, morality, and patterns of knowledge. The culture shift from modernity to postmodernity has affected every community's understanding of meaning. More importantly, it has radically reordered how Americans consider the issue of truth itself.

If nothing else, the last half of the twentieth century has demonstrated that the left wing of the Enlightenment has finally won the day. Whereas most pre-Enlightenment persons understood truth to be an objective reality to which they must submit, modern Americans view truth as a private commodity to be shaped, accepted, or rejected in accord with personal preference, taste, or communal decision. Americans are now a nation of over 250 million moral relativists. The vast majority reject the very notion of absolute truth and consider all matters of faith and morality to be no more than expressions of private preference. It is not that we believe something to be true, but that we believe something to be true FOR US.

This all-embracing, undiluted individualism underlies our current cultural confusion. The progressive shift in the locus of truth and the locus of authority from the Christian worldview to the state, to the mass market and eventually to the isolated individual, leaves the American public unarmed for authentic moral discourse.

An opening came for the homosexual movement in a shift which Mary Ann Glendon of Harvard Law School calls the transfer to “rights talk.” At some point in the last thirty or forty years, the American civic discourse changed from a matter of debate over right and wrong to a debate over rights -- my rights, our rights, your rights, and their rights. According to this perspective, it is not only the right, but fundamentally the responsibility of every self-defined interest group to claim its rights and to exercise those rights in the public square.

“Rights talk” is a fundamental shift in the way a society envisions its own order, its own priorities, and what issues are genuinely at stake. As a result we really can not talk anymore about ordering a society in terms of a category like “righteousness,” a word the nation's Founders used rather naturally.

As the church confronts moral issues, it must quickly determine the relative importance of these issues as each relates to biblical revelation and the core truths of the Christian faith. One of the problems is that the church often does not know the difference between saying that something is unimportant and saying that it is of LESS importance. Our moral debate is very often clouded by such confusions, and when the world listens to us from the outside it often seems as if we believe every issue is of the same moral weight.

In traditional Christian moral theory there has been an understanding that there is a hierarchy of goods and a hierarchy of issues. The closer one gets to the most basic issues of life, as revealed in Scripture, the more important the moral issue of debate. That of course raises the question, “Where in a hierarchy of goods does the issue of homosexuality fall?”

There is no moral issue more fundamental than our sexual ordering, our gendered identity -- the role of men and women and the institution marriage. Thus, the issue of homosexuality is a first order theological issue. Unfortunately, even that is a matter of debate among moral theologians. Some simply do not accept that it is a first order issue, but it most certainly is, because fundamental truths, essential to the Christian faith, are at stake in this confrontation. These truths range from basic issues of theism to biblical authority, the nature of human beings, God's purpose in creation, sin, salvation, sanctification and, by extension, the entire body of divinity. To put this case bluntly, if the claims advanced by the homosexual movement are true and valid, the entire system of Christian faith is compromised, and some essential doctrines will fall.

Lest this be seen as an overstatement, consider the issue of biblical authority and inspiration. If the claims of the revisionist interpreters are valid, then the very basis of biblical inspiration is invalidated. But the challenge is yet deeper, for if, as the revisionist interpreters claim, Holy Scripture can be so wrong and so misdirected on this issue to which it speaks so unambiguously, then the entire evangelical paradigm of biblical authority will not stand.

The church is called to confront the challenge of homosexuality with both compassion and truth. Even as Christians confront this task, maturity and moral seriousness will require that we understand the fundamental importance of this question. The challenge of homosexuality is not merely a matter of cultural and political debate -- it is a matter of urgent theological significance.

Biblical Authority: Must We Accept the Words of Scripture?

John 3:34

The most contentious debates among Christians are arguments over biblical authority. While Christians who accept the full authority of Scripture -- even the inerrancy and infallibility of the biblical text -- may debate issues ranging from baptism and church government to eschatology and spiritual gifts, the issues of greatest debate in our time fall along the fault line of biblical authority.

This is especially true when dealing with the issue of sexuality, and the question of homosexuality in particular. Those who argue for the acceptance of homosexual behavior and the blessing of homosexual relationships have to deal with the fact that the Bible straightforwardly condemns homosexual behavior. In light of this, some attempt to subvert the text by arguing that these texts have actually been horribly misunderstood for over two thousand years. Increasingly, however, some now concede that the Bible condemns homosexuality in every relevant text, but that Christians are no longer bound by the authority of these texts as we deal with the present moral crisis.

One scholar who takes this approach is Brian K. Blount, Richard J. Dearborn Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Princeton Theological Seminary. Professor Blount specializes in “cultural hermeneutics,” and he applies this approach to the issue of homosexuality and biblical authority in an essay entitled, “The Last Word in Biblical Authority.”

Blount's essay is published in STRUGGLING WITH SCRIPTURE, which Blount authored along with coauthors Walter Brueggemann and William C. Placher. The book emerged out of a symposium on the theological interpretation of Scripture in which the three were participants.

Blount begins his essay by suggesting that some persons simply must have THE LAST WORD on any subject. “Many people treat the biblical words that way, believing that those words, all of them, must always be the last words standing. Now in matters of faith -- in matters of understanding our human relationship before God and God's moves to nurture, develop, restructure, and refine that relationship through the prophetic and incarnate Word -- most of Christendom, I think, agrees that those inspired words are lasting words. But in matters of the proper way to appropriate those words of faith ETHICALLY, there is and has always been considerable discussion and debate.”

Well, give Professor Blount credit for honesty. When he looks to the Bible, he does not see eternal words that are to be received as fixed and determinate, but as a text that is to be divided between “matters of faith” and other, presumably negotiable issues.

In making his case, Blount points to the issues of slavery, gender, and sexuality as evidence that “even the inspired biblical authors, when they applied God's prophetic and incarnate Word to their very human situations, allowed those situations to influence how they heard God and therefore how they talked to each other.”

Several clarifications must be inserted here. First, the Bible does not sanction race-based chattel slavery as practiced in many parts of the world, America included, throughout history. The Bible does seek to REGULATE slavery, but there is no way that slavery, gender, and sexuality can be linked as equal issues in terms of biblical interpretation.

Nevertheless, Professor Blount argues that when confronting biblical texts that deal with these issues, the contemporary church must not allow these words to be the last word on the subject. Instead, he argues that “ethical biblical authority is CONTEXTUAL biblical authority.”

The interpretive key, according to Blount, is the human spirit. “The role of the spirit is a constant,” he explains. “Laced into the fabric of human beings is that part of us that reaches beyond the boundaries of our flesh and blood and touches the essential voice of God's own Holy Spirit. Did you ever hear someone say a room is wired for sound? We're wired for God, wired by God with a human spirit that despite its limitations can be touched by God's Holy Spirit. In every time, in every place, in every moment of history, the spirit plays this interlocutory role.”

He argues that the church should hear God's voice “like an inaudible whisper -- sometimes gentle, sometimes fierce -- that jangles the nerves of the human spirit until, tensed and alert, it attends to what it is that God wants to 'say.'“

Nevertheless, what God says “will be different according to the variable conditions in which the human spirits who encounter it find themselves.”

Note his argument carefully. He is suggesting that human experience is the key to interpreting scripture, and that the words of Scripture may take on different meanings in different contexts. The ethical teachings of the Bible, he asserts, are limited to specific times and specific places, where the prejudices and realities of any given time may shape the biblical text in unethical ways. When such texts are encountered, they “ought to be challenged when we find that they were influenced by their contexts in such a way that they are damaging, and not life affirming, in a contemporary circumstance.”

Professor Blount understands that he has set himself up for some difficult questions. Which words of the Bible are to be seen as living and authoritative and which are to be seen as ethically substandard? He accuses the contemporary church of wanting to remain in an infantile state, unwilling to acknowledge the reality of these issues and instead desiring a stable and authoritative text. “We're too often not ready for the meat of mature considerations about the words of texts that were often right for their own times twenty centuries ago but may well be wrong for our time.”

This raises a most interesting question. Is Professor Blount arguing that, assuming his interpretive scheme, slavery was at one time ethically right, but is now to be seen as ethically wrong? When did this transition in the morality of slavery take place? Similar questions could be addressed to the other controversial cases he raises.

Sometimes, he argues that the Bible simply has to be put in its place. He cites Carlos Mesters to the effect that the poor and oppressed in Latin America have had to learn to put the Bible “in its proper place, the place where God intended it to be.” As Mesters affirmed, “They are putting it in second place. Life takes first place!”

“We've often made the biblical words the last word in the sense that none of them can ever change,” Blount argues. “Even if the words were on the mark for a first-century community but are no longer on target for ours, even when they have become like rickety, arthritic knees that don't bend and twist so well in the new race we're running for God, we treat them as if they just started competing yesterday. A last word can't breathe; it can't endure this marathon of living with the people of God who run in the presence of God's ever-living, ever-sustaining Holy Spirit.”

Beyond this, Blount argues that treating the biblical words as fixed and enduring transforms them into literary artifacts. Over time, these words become fossilized and the faith becomes more like an exercise in archaeology than a living faith “that celebrates seeing God say and do new things in new times.”

To be clear about this, what Blount argues is that God is now doing and saying something different than he did and said in the past. Responding to new realities, new people, and new contexts, God is presented as leading His people in new directions, often in contradiction to where he presumably led His people previously.

For most mainline Protestant denominations, the issue of homosexuality is now where the question of biblical authority is most clearly encountered. When he gets to this issue, Blount makes some rather surprising concessions. “The New Testament's words on homosexual behavior are also clear. They are words of condemnation; I don't try to deny that. I don't think anyone should,” he asserts.

Nevertheless, these words are to be seen as coming out of a “particular context” that is significantly different than our own. Thus, “I don't think the words are any longer living, but are, rather, dead words if we try to read them without contextually understanding them today.”

This is where “cultural hermeneutics” serves as a license to liberate the church from the undeniably clear words of Scripture. Applying his tools of cultural hermeneutics, Professor Blount argues that the Apostle Paul “was inspired by God's Word in a world where sexuality was understood in a radically different way from how it is understood today.” For Paul, homosexual activity was tied to idolatry and the “unnatural” dimension of homosexual acts related to the fact that they were not related to procreation. Blount argues that the Apostle Paul derived his understanding of sexuality from the larger secular culture of the Greco-Roman civilization. “He tied his understanding of sexuality to an understanding of sex acts that were properly condoned only when done according to the natural order designed for procreation or as a remedy for the burning passions of lust that apparently threatened the eruption of human bonfires all over the ancient world.”

Pushing further, Blount argues that Paul's thoughts should be divided between his creation theology and his Christ theology, and the two theological strains should be seen as competing with one another in the text of Paul's letters.

Brian K. Blount attempts to offer a hermeneutical rationale for denying the authority of biblical texts that condemn homosexual behavior. In the name of liberating humanity, he would liberate the church from the actual words of Scripture and look instead for an “inner dynamic within the biblical text that transcends the actual words.” This is why a doctrine of verbal inspiration is indispensable to biblical authority. If the very words of Scripture, in the original languages, are not inspired of God, and thus precisely the right words for the church throughout all time, then we are left in a constant battle to negotiate the meaning of the biblical text. Its meaning in one generation might be very different from its meaning in another, and generations to come might actually reverse the interpretation settled upon by Christians living in our times. In other words, God seems to be leading His people in many different directions over time, and the biblical text becomes a fabric that can be stretched in any number of different directions, all claiming to be led by the Spirit of God.

Professor Blount's approach should be understood to be more honest than the arguments made by many others, who would seek to subvert the text by denying that the words actually mean what they appear to mean. Blount accepts that the Bible clearly condemns homosexual behavior, and he advises his colleagues that it is unwise for them to argue otherwise. Nevertheless, he then makes an astounding jump of theological imagination to suggest that the church should simply liberate itself from these words, and should do so in the name of God's own Spirit.

We are reminded all over again that debates over these contentious issues are, at their very base, debates over the nature of biblical authority. Professor Blount wants to affirm some understanding of biblical authority, but his methodology actually places the human spirit and the interpretive community in the roles of greater authority. The biblical text simply has to give way to the “living Word” that the church now experiences.

How long will it be before similar arguments begin to emerge within circles that think themselves solidly committed to biblical authority? We can only wonder -- and watch with great care.

Boys Wearing Skirts To School?

1 Corinthians 11:7

“Clothes are never a frivolity -- they always mean something.” Thus spoke James Laver, a famous costume designer and interpreter of fashion. He is right, of course. Clothes always mean something, which is why The New York Times gave major attention to an issue facing many schools: “Can a Boy Wear a Skirt to School?”

The article, right on the front of the “Sunday Styles” section of the paper, announced, “When gender bends the dress code, high schools struggle to respond.” The story reveals a confusion over gender that goes far beyond the dress code.

As Jan Hoffman reports, high schools generally have very specific rules about clothing these days. Boys are forbidden to wear muscle shirts and saggy pants, and girls cannot wear midriff-exposing tops or skirts that are too short. But what happens when a boy wants to wear a skirt?

“In recent years, a growing number of teenagers have been dressing to articulate -- or confound -- gender identity and sexual orientation,” Hoffman reports. “Certainly they have been confounding school officials, whose responses have ranged from indifference to applause to bans.”

This is no longer an issue limited to isolated examples. Districts across the country have reported teens who have attempted to cross the gender line in dress. Many of these cases have captured media attention, with highly publicized controversies. In other cases, the challenges have been more quiet.

The cases are, to say the least, both interesting and troubling. Boys are making news for wearing skinny jeans, makeup, wigs and skirts. Girls are bending gender in their own way by, for example, wearing a tuxedo for the school picture or to a school event.

Hoffman does a good job of setting the issue in perspective:

“Dress is always code, particularly for teenagers eager to telegraph evolving identities. Each year, schools hope to quell disruption by prohibiting the latest styles that signify a gang affiliation, a sexual act or drug use.

“But when officials want to discipline a student whose wardrobe expresses sexual orientation or gender variance, they must consider antidiscrimination policies, mental health factors, community standards and classroom distractions.”

Well, that certainly presents a very complicated challenge. Diane Ehrensaft, an Oakland psychologist cited in the article, states the obvious: “This generation is really challenging the gender norms we grew up with.... A lot of youths say they won’t be bound by boys having to wear this or girls wearing that. For them, gender is a creative playing field.” She added that adults then “become the gender police through dress codes.”

As Hoffman makes clear, these challenges to dress codes can quickly become legal skirmishes pitting students (and often their parents) against school administrators. Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute argues that this is one reason that so many schools have shifted to students wearing uniforms.

“It’s hard enough to get students to concentrate on an algorithm,” she reminds, “even without Jimmy sitting there in lipstick and fake eyelashes.”

That sets the issue in a very clear instructional perspective. Schools are about teaching and learning, and both teachers and administrators face daunting challenges. The last thing they need is the added distraction of gender-bending teenagers on parade.

And the issues can be far more troubling than classroom distractions. Hoffman reports that some schools have faced boys wearing “pink frilly scarves” and makeup and girls trying to dress like male gang members.

In Columbus, Ohio, a boy wore girls’ clothing but used the boys’ bathroom. Jeff Grace, faculty advisor for the school’s gay-straight alliance club, told Hoffman, “One day I heard a student say, ‘Man, there was a girl in the guy’s restroom, standing up using the urinal! What’s up with that?’” Another student then quipped, “That wasn’t a girl. That’s just Jack.”

These adolescents represent the younger face of a society that is giving itself over to a confusion about gender and dress that reveals a much deeper confusion about gender, sexuality and the limits of self-expression. The controversy also reveals an even deeper cultural and moral divide over the same issues.

Should a boy who shows up at school dressed as a girl be celebrated for self-expression and transgressing the boundaries of gender roles, or should he be seen as signaling a need for help and adult-imposed rules? The widely divergent answers to that question reveal the great worldview divide in postmodern America.

This controversy cannot be isolated from the movement to normalize homosexuality, and that movement cannot be separated from an effort to remove all notions of fixed gender roles and sexual identity.

The controversy over boys wearing skirts to school is a symptom of our loss of sexual sanity and the will to preserve any reasonable and healthy understanding of gender. These teenagers are telling us something important -- we are losing our sexual sanity.

For Christians, the issue is a matter of biblical concern. The Bible reveals a concern for respecting and honoring gender as God’s gift. In the Old Testament, the Law taught respect for these distinctions and roles. In the New Testament, we find similar expectations. As the Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11:7-15:

“For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.

“Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man nor man of woman; for as woman was made from man, so man is now born of woman. And all things are from God. Judge for yourselves: is it proper for a wife to pray to God with her head uncovered? Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him, but if a woman has long hair, it is her glory? For her hair is given to her for a covering.”

While addressed to the specific concerns of a church setting, this text also generalizes the point by making a specific reference to what nature teaches concerning the recognition of the difference between males and females.

The Creator is honored and glorified when men and boys dress and present themselves as males and when women and girls dress and present themselves as females. Culture by culture and generation by generation the specific form of this distinction may change, but the point remains.

God made human beings to show His glory, and an essential part of that glory is the visible difference between males and females that is reflected even in the public presentation of dress. We should be able to tell the difference between a boy and a girl by the way they dress and present themselves in public.

As Laver reminded, clothes always tell us something. This article from the “Sunday Styles” section of The New York Times tells us something as well -- something we need to hear.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #21026]

Defining the Issues -- A Methodist Witness

Rob Renfroe, a minister at The Woodlands United Methodist Church near Houston, Texas, writes a very interesting article in the current issue of Good News magazine, published by the Good News Movement, a group of evangelical United Methodists. In “An Appeal to Leadership -- Listen and Lead,” Renfroe argues that the sexuality issues currently dividing his church point to far deeper differences.

He explains, “we do not believe that homosexuality is the issue that is dividing the church. That would be like saying that the primary issue facing a patient with a staff infection is his fever. I wish homosexuality was the issue that divided the church. It would be enough. But it’s not. The divide runs much deeper than our differences regarding sexual practice and it centers on four key issues.”

This is a keen insight. The issues related to sexuality point to more fundamental issues of biblical authority, the nature and character of God, and the meaning of the Gospel. Renfroe helpfully spells out the four key issues as he sees them.

First, “The nature of moral truth. Is moral truth determined by the unchanging character of God? Or is it determined by the ever-changing experiences of human beings?”

This is absolutely essential. If moral truth (as contrasted with our fallible moral judgments) is determined by our own changing experiences, then moral truth really does not exist. It is nothing more than mere social construction. In truth, righteousness is determined by God’s unchanging character -- as is sin.

Second, “The authority of the Scriptures. Do the Scriptures speak truth to all peoples in all cultures at all times? Or were they wrong when they were written, culturally determined in their declarations, and hopelessly out of date for persons enlightened by the truth contained in the last sociological surveys?”

Again, absolutely crucial. If the Bible is not a truly transcultural revelation from God, we have no authority for speaking to anyone outside of our own culture. Furthermore, we cannot apply the moral wisdom of an ancient people in an ancient age to our contemporary context. This leaves the church in a disastrous predicament, and silences the Bible.

Third, “The revelatory work of the Holy Spirit. Is the revelatory work always in accordance with the Scriptures? Or can the Spirit amend and even contradict the Scriptures?”

Renfroe’s expansion of this point is crucial to his argument:

Even the most conservative Christians believe that it is the

ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to illumine the Scriptures,

reveal more of its meaning, and show us how to apply the eternal

Word of God to the issues of our contemporary time and culture.

But liberals, at least the more radical ones, go much further

than that. They believe that the living Christ not only offers

new insights into the Scriptures, but that he also corrects,

amends, and even contradicts it. As one retired elder in our

annual conference said to me, “The church created the Scriptures

so we can recreate them.”

We now see some, even some claiming to be evangelicals, who claim that the Holy Spirit has led them to believe and to act in direct opposition to the Bible. This is an insult to the Bible and to the Holy Spirit. The assumption of individual autonomy, wedded to a radical concept of the Holy Spirit as a spiritual revolutionary, leads some to attempt to remake Christianity in their own image -- and then to claim that the Holy Spirit led them there.

Fourth, “The uniqueness of Christ. Do we confess him as the only-begotten Son of God, the unique Savior of the word, and the supreme Lord of the universe? Or can he be particularized to our experiences, relativized for a Western culture, and trivialized into just one of many ways to God?”

As Australian Anglican Archbishop Peter Jensen claims, if we will not defend the plain teachings of the Bible on sexuality, we will not defend the Bible’s clear witness to the uniqueness of Christ. Rob Renfroe makes essentially the same point here. If the Bible’s teachings on sexuality are culturally relative, then so is its message about salvation -- and its witness to Christ. At this point, we then have no authority for knowing who Jesus Christ really is or why the question really matters.

Clarifying the issues is a first step toward answering the crucial questions. Rob Renfroe has done a commendable job of clarifying the issues that face not only his denomination, but all Christians today. All four of these points come down to biblical authority. There is just no way around it.

Is Christianity Credible On the Issue of Homosexuality?

Is Christianity in America losing its credibility? Oliver “Buzz” Thomas obviously thinks so. In his view, Christianity is losing credibility because so many Christians believe that homosexuality is a sin.

He doesn’t mince words. In an op-ed column published in USA Today, Thomas (a minister and attorney) set out his case:

Last week, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops took the position that

homosexual attractions are “disordered” and that gays should live

closeted lives of chastity. At the same time, North Carolina’s

Baptist State Convention was preparing to investigate churches

that are too gay - friendly. Even the more liberal Presbyterian

Church (USA) had been planning to put a minister on trial for

conducting a marriage ceremony for two women before the charges

were dismissed on a technicality. All this brings me back to the

question: What if we’re wrong?

Religion’s only real commodity, after all, is its moral

authority. Lose that, and we lose our credibility. Lose

credibility, and we might as well close up shop.

It’s happened to Christianity before, most famously when we dug

in our heels over Galileo’s challenge to the biblical view that

the Earth, rather than the sun, was at the center of our solar

system. You know the story. Galileo was persecuted for what

turned out to be incontrovertibly true. For many, especially in

the scientific community, Christianity never recovered.

This time, Christianity is in danger of squandering its moral

authority by continuing its pattern of discrimination against

gays and lesbians in the face of mounting scientific evidence

that sexual orientation has little or nothing to do with choice.

To the contrary, whether sexual orientation arises as a result of

the mother’s hormones or the child’s brain structure or DNA, it

is almost certainly an accident of birth. The point is this:

Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.

His argument is not subtle. He is confident that homosexuality is a natural factor and that it is foolish to suggest that it is sinful. Christians who persist in pushing the foolish case that homosexual behavior is sin are robbing the church of its “only real commodity.”

You can quickly see how Thomas’s logic works. The world will increasingly see Christians who insist on the sinfulness of homosexuality as foolish, repressive, and mean - spirited, costing the church (and the Gospel) dearly in terms of public opinion and credibility.

He suggests that the church will one day have to offer a public correction something like this:

Correction: Despite what you might have read, heard or been

taught throughout your churchgoing life, homosexuality is, in

fact, determined at birth and is not to be condemned by God’s

followers.

Clearly, this is a serious charge. We need to take a close look at his argument at two levels.

At the first level, his argument assumes that science has now proved that homosexuality is biologically determined. In his words, “whether sexual orientation arises as a result of the mother’s hormones or the child’s brain structure or DNA, it is almost certainly an accident of birth.”

But science has “proved” no such thing. Yet, assume for a moment that it has. Let’s assume that some incontrovertible proof is offered that undeniably indicates that an orientation toward same - sex sexual desire is related to or established in biological factors. What then? Buzz Thomas is sure that biology determines destiny and eliminates the moral question. As he puts it, “Without choice, there can be no moral culpability.”

This argument cannot be sustained. Biological factors may play a role in any number of behaviors that are immoral. The human being is a complex of urges, desires, and “orientations.” Just consider where Thomas’s argument will take us. What if incontrovertible proof is offered that any number of sexual orientations are rooted in some manner in biological causation? What then? After all, the homosexual rights movement has already expanded and divided into separate categories including transsexualism, transgendered persons, etc. What if we discover that pedophilia, incest, polyamory and any number of other sexual desires are rooted in biological factors? Would that then mean that such behaviors were not sinful? Most persons, homosexuals included, would recoil at the suggestion.

But, if the existence of biological factors or causation means “there can be no moral culpability,” there is no way to avoid that conclusion.

As for Thomas’s use of the Bible, it is sloppy and reckless. He simply accepts the arguments of liberal critics that, for example, Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality was really just a condemnation of pederasty. This is just not a smart argument. Paul’s language does not allow this and it would defeat the entire force of Paul’s argument.

Beyond this, those who argue that Paul does not condemn homosexuality per se are in the intellectually indefensible position of arguing that the earliest Christians -- those who inhabited Paul’s own world and used his own language -- grossly misunderstood Paul, while postmodern Western academics suddenly get him right. Poor Paul, misunderstood for centuries, only to be rescued after 2,000 years by liberal theologians. How can that argument be made with a straight face?

Thomas is also sure that a reference to Galileo should suffice to show us the error of our ways. After all, Galileo was right -- the universe is heliocentric not geocentric -- and the Catholic Church, according to the popular account, wasted its credibility trying to argue otherwise. In reality, the case of Galileo was a convoluted historical event. But, in any case, no clear teachings of Scripture were ever at stake. The Bible never condemns belief in a heliocentric universe. It does condemn homosexual behavior.

Buzz Thomas is right to argue that Christians who insist that homosexual behavior is sinful do so because we believe the Bible to require this belief -- something the Christian church in all its branches has accepted for 2,000 years.

This brings us to an even more important question. At the second level, Thomas’s point about credibility deserves a closer look. Credibility in whose eyes? Credibility related to which truth claims?

The claim that homosexual behavior is sinful may prompt a credibility crisis in the current cultural context, but this is true of any number of essential Christian teachings. The exclusivity of the Gospel? Atonement through the death of Christ? The veracity of the miracle accounts? The deity of Christ? Propositional revelation? All these represent credibility crises in terms of the contemporary intellectual climate.

Christianity has always faced a credibility crisis. Paul himself made this clear when he reminded the Corinthian Christians that the intellectual class sees the cross of Christ as “foolishness” while others see it as a scandal.

From the beginning, liberal theology has been a series of rescue attempts on the part of theologians who have sought to rescue the church from its credibility crisis in the eyes of the modern academy and culture. That project is a denial of the faith and a route to disaster. If you sincerely believe that Christianity must change its position on homosexuality, you will hardly be able to stop there.

The credibility crisis on the issue on homosexuality that really matters is the loss of credibility suffered by the church when it fails to tell the truth with love, recoils from homosexuals instead of reaching out with God’s love, and buries its head in the sand. This is the credibility crisis we must quickly address and where the Gospel is truly at stake.

__________________________

Readers familiar with the recent history of the Southern Baptist Convention will recognize that Buzz Thomas was for many years counsel and staff member of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (now known as the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty), a group defunded over a decade ago by the Southern Baptist Convention, which formally disassociated itself from the BJCPA. Anyone wondering why the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention was necessary should find ample evidence in Buzz Thomas’s article.

Environmental Factors and Homosexuality

Mark Twain said once: “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” If environmental factors in sexual preference could talk, they might say the same thing. For sure, social or family factors in influencing sexual attractions have been written off by numerous scholars and media members. However, a new Danish study may prompt a fresh evaluation of the role of social factors in sexual orientation.

The study, published in the October 2006 issue of Archives of Sexual Behavior, authored by Danish epidemiologist Morten Frisch and statistician Anders Hviid, reports the analysis of data from more than two million men and women. It is the first study to examine an entire group of homosexuals for environmental factors in their decisions to “marry” homosexually. The research suggests a link between environmental factors such as geographic birthplace and family relationships and the probability of “marrying” a same-sex partner. The massive study also finds that the number of brothers and sisters affects the probability of marrying heterosexually. This finding questions a recent, widely touted Canadian study of birth order that found the number of older brothers increased the probably of homosexuality in men.

The Danish researchers found no evidence that having older brothers increased the likelihood of men “marrying” homosexually. On the contrary, they found that older siblings increased the probability of heterosexual marriage. The choice of homosexual versus heterosexual marriage serves as an obvious, although not perfect, assessment of sexual preferences.

Regarding the fraternal birth order effect, the authors said, “[W]e found no indication that older brothers were particularly common in these homosexual men.”

The researchers found that for each additional year one’s parents stay married, the probability of heterosexual marriage in the children increased by 1.6 percent among sons and 1 percent among daughters. By contrast, the rate of homosexual unions decreased by 1.8 percent among sons and 1.4 percent among daughters for every year of intact parental marriage. Summing these effects over years of childhood and adolescence contributes to a noteworthy impact.

Regarding “homosexual marriages,” the researchers found that birth place relates to the sexual orientation of the marriage partner. Being born in urban settings increased the probability of “homosexual marriage” and decreased the probability of heterosexual marriage. Frisch and Hviid noted, “Our study may be the first to show that birth place or some correlate thereof influences marital choices in adulthood.”

The authors also confirmed previous research suggesting that children who experience parental divorce are less likely to marry heterosexually than children reared in intact families.

Frisch and Hviid reported that “for men, unknown paternal identity, parental divorce, short duration of cohabitation with both parents, and long duration of father-absent cohabitation with mother were all associated with increased rates of homosexual marriage.” For women, “homosexual marriage” rates were elevated among women whose parents were married briefly and those who experienced long periods of mother absence due either to abandonment or death during the teen years.

Taken together, the study’s findings suggest that intact parents bearing multiple children and living in rural areas increase the probability of heterosexual pairings in their children.

This study was not designed to examine all possible contributions to sexual orientation nor does it account for individual situations. We know, for instance, homosexuals and straights come from all kinds of families and locations. However, the Danish study raises the possibility that family and social factors function to help shape adult sexual preference, in combination with whatever biological factors may also operate. Also, by questioning the fraternal birth order effect in male homosexuality the study calls for additional studies to assess the theory based on high-quality data from other settings and by independent research teams.

“Prenatal factors alone cannot account for the variation in human sexual orientations -- otherwise, all our urban/rural and family-dynamic findings should have shown no association,” Frisch said in an interview.

The study adds support to the theory that environmental and biological factors work together to influence sexual attractions and behaviors. Frisch concluded, “[W]hatever ingredients determine a person’s sexual preferences and marital choices, our population-based study shows that environmental factors are important.”

Thus, environmental influences on sexuality, rumored to be irrelevant, are actually alive and quite well.

________

Warren Throckmorton is associate professor of psychology and fellow for psychology and public policy in the Center for Vision and Values at Grove City (PA) College, a Christian college in Pennsylvania.

The Crime of Conviction: General Pace and Morality

Our nation’s top military officer, a veteran decorated with no less than forty-eight military awards and a very distinguished career, made a startling revelation this week: He has moral conviction. The world gasps, hurls insults, and demands an apology. How dare one of the top leaders of our land have a moral belief and share it when questioned!

But that’s exactly what happened this week when the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — the first Marine general ever to hold that position — General Peter Pace, commented in a wide-ranging interview with the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, “My upbringing is such that I believe that there are certain things, certain types of conduct that are immoral. I believe that military members who sleep with other military members’ wives are immoral in their conduct, and that we should not tolerate that.”

But then Pace went on to tell the TRIBUNE, “I believe that homosexual acts between individuals are immoral and that we should not condone immoral acts.” Well, stop the presses.

Of course, all that the radio, news, and television outlets have focused on since General Pace’s comments are his remarks on homosexuality. Never mind that he puts immorality of all kinds on equal footing. General Pace went on to say in the interview, “I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way.”

While the world should be applauding a man who proposes that one of the most important institutions in our country should have moral integrity, instead we hammer him for having a conviction.

But I believe this goes far beyond the whole question of homosexuals in the military and the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. This cuts to the core of the question of whether anyone in public office is free to speak his deepest religious or moral convictions. The Constitution says there will be no religious test for office, and yet we are applying one. We are basically saying that if you are the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, you are not allowed to express your moral or religious views — especially on matters of sexual preference and behavior.

This is another sign that we live in an age that no longer believes in objective truth or a moral order. Moral relativism is the rule, and personal preference trumps all. And government is there to ensure that no one place any restraint on the pursuit of our own desires.

I have long said that C. S. Lewis was prophetic when in 1943 he wrote about the irony of our education system, saying, “Such is the tragicomedy of our situation — we continue to clamour for those very qualities we are rendering impossible.... In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.”

Ironic that today, the head of our Joint Chiefs of Staff argues that the military should have consistent policies of moral integrity, and the world demands an apology. Maybe it is time to lock him up: General Pace is guilty. He has committed the intolerable crime of our day: He has stated his conviction in a value-free society that respects only so-called “tolerance.”

As for me, well, General Pace makes me proud that I am a former Marine.

________

Leading Homosexual Activist Finds Freedom In Christ

Imagine a prominent conservative Christian publicly announcing that he has renounced heterosexuality and will henceforth and forever be homosexual. Add to the scenario the leader declaring he is dedicated to promoting the glory of gayness and encouraging others to become homosexual. Now try to imagine the mainstream media ignoring such an announcement.

Try as I might, I cannot, for the life of me, imagine the mainstream press failing to report such news. Instead, there would be a media firestorm. The news would spread fast and furious from sea to shining sea -- even if the leader was prominent only on a regional or state level.

If the mainstream media types would be quick to pounce on the news of a Christian leader coming out of the closet, and I believe they would, do you think they would be as eager to cover a prominent homosexual activist who embraced Christianity and renounced his or her homosexuality?

You need not ponder the aforementioned question very long. A prominent homosexual activist has become a Christian. She has also become an evangelist pointing homosexuals to a way out of their aberrant lifestyles. And, thus far, the mainstream media has completely ignored the story.

Charlene E. Cothran, a prominent homosexual activist and publisher and editor-in-chief of the black homosexual-oriented publication “Venus Magazine,” recently announced that she had embraced Christianity and renounced homosexuality.

Cothran’s announcement came in the form of a cover article in the February issue of “Venus” titled “Redeemed! 10 Ways to Get Out of the Gay Life, If You Want Out.” The magazine, once considered by many to be the leading magazine for homosexual African Americans, has changed its tune.

“Over the past 29 years of my life I have been an aggressive, creative and strategic supporter of gay and lesbian issues,” Cothran wrote. “I’ve organized and participated in countless marches and various lobbying efforts in the fight for equal treatment of gay and lesbians.”

A few paragraphs later Cothran dropped her bombshell, “But now, I must come out of the closet again.” She continued, “I have recently experienced the power of change that came over me once I completely surrendered to the teachings of Jesus Christ.”

Cothran goes on to explain in the remainder of the article how a “chance” encounter with a pastor resulted in her giving her heart and soul to the Lord. “A river of tears flowed as Jesus washed me and forgave me and redeemed me for His work,” Cothran wrote.

Coming to Christ caused Cothran to view her lesbianism in a new light.

“As a believer of the word of God, I fully accept and have always known that same-sex relationships are not what God intended for us,” she wrote.

“Jesus will cleanse and forgive all confessed sin from a willing heart,” Cothran declared. “Homosexuality is only one of them. It is no greater sin than any of the others, but it is a sin.”

Cothran went on in the article to share 10 ways homosexuals could leave the homosexual lifestyle behind. One of the steps is to “seek the truth within the scriptures about homosexuality.”

“Know that we were NOT born this way,” she wrote, and added, “Gay theology starts with an agenda [‘Let’s make the bible say gay is O.K.’] in order to arrive at its conclusions, but it is a lie.”

“I have given every gift I have back to God, including ‘Venus Magazine,’” she wrote.

Cothran indicated that her new message is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and her “new mission is to encourage, educate and assist those in the life [homosexuality] who want change but can’t find a way out.”

The latest edition of the magazine includes testimonies from others who have left homosexuality. The publication even has a new mission statement. It reads, in part, “The new mission of Venus Magazine is to encourage, educate and assist those who desire to leave a life of homosexuality. Our ultimate mission is to win souls for Christ, and to do so by showing love to all God’s people. We believe that homosexuality is outside of the will of God.”

A prominent homosexual activist not only embraces Christianity, but also seeks to evangelize the homosexual community, and not a single mainstream news organization reports it. Many homosexual outlets also have ignored it. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing, especially if your publication wants to pander to homosexuals by not printing anything that might possibly be damaging to their cause.

Is Homosexuality Determined By Biology Alone?

Jude 1:7

A controversial article by Dr. Mohler discussed the ramifications for Christians if a biological marker for homosexuality were ever found. Here is his analysis of the interplay of biology and the Bible:

1. God’s condemnation of sin is not determined by science, but by God’s Word. The Bible could not be more clear -- all forms of homosexual behavior are expressly condemned as sin. In so doing, the Bible uses its strongest vocabulary and places this condemnation in the larger context of the Creator’s rightful expectation of our stewardship of the sexual gift. All manifestations of homosexuality are thus representations of human sinfulness and rebellion against God’s express will. Nothing can alter this fact, and no discovery in science or any other human endeavor can change God’s verdict.

2. There is no conclusive research that indicates any biological basis for sexual orientation. But -- and this is a big “if” here -- if science were ever to discover a correlation or causation with biological factors, Christians should not be surprised. We believe in the catastrophic and comprehensive effects of the Fall and God’s judgment upon sin.

3. Such a discovery, if it were to be accepted, would not change God’s condemnation of all forms of homosexual behavior, nor would it mean that this represents the inviolable “identity” of any individual. As I argued previously, moral responsibility does not require absolute moral choice. A soldier in battle may not have chosen to be in a situation of moral anguish, but he is still absolutely responsible for his decisions and actions. Those who commit homosexual acts, whoever they are and whatever their biological profile, are absolutely responsible for their sin. Regardless of any actual or hypothetical orientation, those who commit same-sex acts are responsible for the choice to commit the sinful act. Those who claim that they did not choose their sexual attraction are nevertheless fully responsible for choosing to perform sexual acts the Bible condemns as sin -- period.

4. Some Christians seem absolutely convinced that there is no such thing as sexual orientation. There is a point to be made here. No “orientation” can alter the sinful status of sinful acts. Some have written me to say that there is no such reality as a homosexual, only those who perform homosexual acts. This flies in the face of the Bible, however, which speaks of those who commit such sins by their sin -- murderers, liars, adulterers, gossips, etc. It does not help to deny this. But, even though no “orientation” can alter the moral status of actions, the fact remains that some persons are sexually attracted to persons of the same sex while the majority are sexually attracted to persons of the opposite sex. There are other terms to use here, ranging from “sexual attraction pattern” to “sexual arousal profile,” but sexual orientation seems a bit less explicit and is generally understood within the culture.

5. Research into the human genome and the possibility of germ-line therapies raises all kinds of moral concerns, ranging from the creation of designer babies to the redefinition of humanity. In one article, I was said to advocate genetic therapies. I never said that, and I resolutely oppose such proposals. I would not advocate the use of genetic therapies to create heterosexual babies -- or any other therapy of this type. The hypothetical question I addressed had nothing to do with genetic factors at all. Furthermore, genetic factors are likely to be so complex and inter-related that no single genetic factor or set of factors is likely to be found to cause anything as complex as sexual attraction.

6. Caring Christians will be aware of the fact that many persons who struggle with homosexuality -- males and females -- testify as Christian believers or as those troubled in conscience that they simply have no idea where same-sex desire originated in their lives. They do know that they did not choose this pattern of attraction. Again, that does not reduce their moral responsibility in any way or to any degree. But caring Christians, fully committed to the sole authority of the Bible, must want to help persons to understand and deal with this specific temptation to sin.

7. The causes of same-sex attraction are likely to be very complex. The research of Joseph Nicolosi and others points to specific social and environmental factors as a prime cause. Boys who do not identify themselves with Dad by age two are clearly at risk. Dr. James Dobson addresses many of these factors in his book, “Bringing Up Boys.” Given the devastating impact of the Fall, we should not be shaken to our foundations if other causative factors are found. In any event, Christian compassion must lead us to want to know how this would happen in order that we can help those struggling with this sin. We should be thankful for those who, through biblical counsel and guidance, are helping homosexuals to find victory in Christ.

8. Let’s remember that all of us are born with a huge moral defect -- we are sinners from the start. Christians who have responded with claims that God would not allow a person to be born with a bent toward sin miss the clear biblical teaching that all of us are born with a bent toward sin and with a sin nature. We are born marked by Adam’s sin and already under God’s just condemnation for that sin.

9. The only cure for sin itself is the cross of Christ. No therapy will cleanse us of sin, no treatment will atone. Only the shed blood of Jesus Christ will save, and salvation is found in Him alone.

10. Thanks are due to all who wrote or contacted me about these issues. That is not an easy thing to write, given the caustic tone of many communications and the fact that so many did not even bother to read my article. Nevertheless, I learned from your responses, and I am sure that God intended them for my good. I also want to be humble in asking fellow believers to join me in thinking about these crucial questions. If I have missed something, point it out. If I have violated Scripture in any way, bring this to my attention. If I am confused in any way, point to clarification.

We must be committed to being relentless in seeking to ground our thinking in biblical truth. The issues we face are daunting. The issue of homosexuality will not go away. Bromides and careless thinking will not serve the church well. Christian families are struggling with sons and daughters, brothers and sisters and a myriad of others who are themselves struggling with this sin or caught in its grasp. Many homosexual persons are waiting anxiously to see if Christians really love the sinner even as we hate the sin. When it comes to homosexuality, the Christian church has often violated its Gospel by appearing to hate both this sin and the sinners who involve themselves in homosexuality.

Here is a haunting question to consider. In 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 the Apostle Paul condemns an entire list of sins, including explicit references to homosexuality. Then he reminds the church, “such were some of you.” The complete text reads: “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). God brings glory to himself through the salvation of sinners -- and Paul includes homosexuality in that list. Why do we not see more redeemed sinners testifying to the grace of God in bringing them out of the sin of homosexuality? Could it be because many churches would rather just isolate themselves from persons in this category of sin?

As John Newton, author of the hymn “Amazing Grace,” once testified: “I know that I am a great sinner and that Jesus is a great Savior.” We should seek the glory of God in the salvation of sinners -- sinners of every type and temptation.

To those identifying themselves as homosexuals: Again, I am thankful for your communications. Some were filled with hate and with language that is unrepeatable here. Some of you consider any claim that homosexual acts are sinful to be hateful. Others would insist that declaring heterosexual marriage to be a resolute norm is hateful. Many claim that trying to help a person out of homosexuality is hateful.

I do not expect that anything I can say or write will change that determined response. All I can do is be clear about what the Bible reveals about God’s verdict on all homosexual acts. Christians are called to love homosexual persons, but we cannot love homosexuality. That is simply not an option. We cannot mislead you by telling you anything other than what the Bible says about homosexuality. The greatest act of compassion a biblical Christian can offer is to tell the truth about our sin, and point all persons to redemption through faith in Christ.

Furthermore, I have heard from so many persons who struggle in their consciences with homosexuality -- persons who claim with obvious sincerity of heart that they do not know the origin of this temptation and deny that they consciously chose it. I am trying to take this into serious account and not to misrepresent what you say and know about yourselves.

From a biblical perspective, it makes no sense to say that homosexuality is normative supposedly because God “makes” people that way. God does not allow any of us to escape His righteous judgment on our sin, whatever the biological, environmental, social or historical factors that we may claim as explanatory factors.

The Thought Police: What the Hate Crimes Law Would Do

In George Orwell’s classic novel 1984, the government Thought Police constantly spies on citizens to make sure they are not thinking rebellious thoughts. Thought crimes are severely punished by Big Brother.

1984 was intended as a warning against totalitarian governments that enslave and control their citizens. Never have we needed this warning more urgently than now, because America’s Thought Police are knocking on your door.

Last week the House Judiciary Committee, egged on by radical homosexual groups, passed what can only be called a Thought Crimes bill. It’s called the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. But this bill is not about hate. It’s not even about crime. It’s about outlawing peaceful speech — speech that asserts that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.

Some say we need this law to prevent attacks on homosexuals. But we already have laws against assaults on people and property. Moreover, according to the FBI, crimes against homosexuals in the United States have dropped dramatically in recent years. In 2005, out of 863,000 cases of aggravated assault, just 177 cases were crimes of bias against homosexuals — far less than even 1 percent.

Another problem is that in places where hate crimes laws have been passed, hate crimes have been defined to include verbal attacks — and even peaceful speech. The Thought Police have already prosecuted Christians under hate crimes laws in England, Sweden, Canada, and even in some places in the United States.

If this dangerous law passes, pastors who preach sermons giving the biblical view of homosexuality could be prosecuted. Christian businessmen who refuse to print pro-gay literature could be prosecuted. Groups like Exodus International, which offer therapy to those with unwanted same-sex attraction, could be shut down.

In classic 1984 fashion, peaceful speech will be redefined as a violent attack worthy of punishment.

This is the unspoken goal of activist groups. We know this because during the debate over the bill last week, Congressman Mike Pence (R) of Indiana offered a Freedom of Religion amendment to this hate crimes bill. It asked that nothing in this law limit the religious freedom of any person or group under the Constitution. The committee refused to adopt it. It also refused to adopt amendments protecting other groups from hate crimes — like members of the military, who are often targets of verbal attacks and spitting. They also shot down amendments that would protect the homeless and senior citizens, also often targeted by criminals. Nothing doing, the committee said — the only group they wanted to protect: homosexuals.

Clearly, the intent of this law is not to prevent crime, but to shut down freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of thought. Its passage would strike at the very heart of our democracy.

The full Congress may vote on this bill as early as this week. Unless you want Big Brother telling you what to say, what to think, and what to believe, I urge you to contact your congressman immediately, urging him or her to vote against this bill. If you visit the BreakPoint website, you’ll find more information about this radical law.

If we do nothing, 1984 will no longer be fiction, and Big Brother will be watching you and me — ready to punish the “wrong” thoughts.

________

A Pastor's Response On Homosexuality

Jude 1:7

Below is a letter received by Rev. Dr. Gordon Hugenberger on the issue of homosexuality and his response:

Dear Pastor,

We love the fact that Park Street Church [Boston, Massachusetts]

stresses the Gospel of Christ, but it doesn’t get stressed out

about so many of the secondary issues which seem to divide

Christians (baptism, Charismatic gifts, style of worship, etc.).

We sense, however, that there is not a similar openness to

various points of view about the ethics of homosexuality. Why?

Isn’t this an issue over which sincere Christians disagree?

After all, Jesus never condemned homosexuality, and Paul only

condemned heterosexuals who engaged in homosexual acts, which

were “unnatural” for them.

Sincerely,

Puzzled

Dear Puzzled,

Thank you very much for your thoughtful remarks and question about my recent comments regarding homosexuality...Let me say a few things about each of the main points you raise.

1. I tried to summarize as fairly as I could the principal convictions of modern evangelicalism and indicate a few areas where evangelicals in general, and Park Street Church in particular, recognize that there is room for honest differences of opinion. If we take the National Association of Evangelicals, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, Campus Crusade for Christ, Navigators, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Evangelical Theological Society, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Seminary, Denver Theological Seminary, Phoenix Theological Seminary, Bethel College, Calvin College, Wheaton College, Gordon College, World Relief, World Vision, Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship, Christianity Today, Focus on the Family, etc., as well-known organizations which are representative of the convictions of the mainstream of Evangelicalism in America today, ALL of these groups in official documents or writings by their leaders of which I am aware universally reject homosexual practice (NOT homosexual orientation) as a departure from the will of God. The same is true, at least to my knowledge, for every single Evangelical denomination in America or elsewhere in the world, including our own denomination (the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference). Of course, almost every one of these hundreds of denominations has had to study the question, because so many are asking about it. What is remarkable is that every last one has concluded that yes, in fact, the Bible really does reject homosexual practice. This should not surprise us. Even the recently ordained Episcopal Bishop [Eugene] Robinson, who is a practicing homosexual, has been honest enough to acknowledge that in several places the Bible does reject homosexuality (not just homosexual rape or promiscuity). Robinson defends his lifestyle, however, on the ground that, although these passages condemn homosexual practice, he believes that Jesus’ priority on love outweighs them. My point here, however, is simply to indicate that it would have been dishonest of me to suggest in my sermon on Sunday that evangelicals are agreed that this issue is comparable to baptism, etc., on which evangelicals are found in large numbers on both sides of the question.

2. Since Paul was as well educated and well read as he was (he quotes secular authors like Epimenides, Aratus, etc.), he would have been quite familiar with the vast homosexual literature of the Hellenistic world in which tender, committed, nurturing homoerotic love was celebrated. No doubt, he would have known of Emperor Nero’s own homosexual marriage to Sporus. Since Paul ministered for a length of time in Corinth, he may well have known firsthand of many other homosexual marriages. Despite all of this, at no point does Paul say even the slightest positive thing about homosexual practice. Instead, every time he addresses it, he rejects it as an option for Christians. Perhaps what may be most helpful to stress here is the fact that the precise language Paul uses in condemning homosexual practice is far more comprehensive than many English translations may imply. For example, the recently published 3rd edition of Walter Bauer’s GREEK-ENGLISH LEXICON OF THE NEW TESTAMENTAND OTHER EARLY CHRISTIAN LITERATURE (University of Chicago Press, 2000) rejects the earlier speculative views of Derrick Bailey, Scroggs, and others who hypothesized that in 1 Corinthians 6:9 Paul was only opposing homosexual prostitution. This lexicon, which is the recognized definitive authority for First Century AD Greek, argues that the terms which are mistakenly translated by the NIV as “male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders” in fact refer comprehensively to the passive and active partners of any homosexual relationship, not just ones that are commercial or abusive. The same conclusion is argued in detail by most of the recent scholarly commentaries on 1 Corinthians, including those authored by F.F. Bruce, C.K. Barrett, and Anthony C. Thiselton. It is also a view that is supported at great length by Robert A.J. Gagnon in THE BIBLE AND HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE (Abingdon Press, 2001). Gagnon is a graduate of Harvard and Yale, and he is now Professor of New Testament in Pittsburgh. Although he is not an Evangelical Christian, Gagnon’s book is enormously useful and has been reviewed very positively by leading biblical scholars such as Brevard Childs of Yale, James Barr of Oxford, etc. If I had the time to develop my thoughts here, I would stress that Paul does not speak of “homosexuality” in the abstract in 1 Corinthians 6. Instead he uses the language that he does precisely in order to include ALL homosexual acts (whether receptive or active), but to EXCLUDE homosexual orientation.

3. It is sometimes claimed, based on Romans 1, that Paul only condemned heterosexuals who were acting like homosexuals. This view has been frequently repeated since it was first invented by Derrick Sherwin Bailey in 1955 in his book, HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE WESTERN CHRISTIAN TRADITION. Unfortunately, however, it is mistaken. Virtually no New Testament scholar of any stature (regardless of his or her theology or sexual orientation) now supports it. Based on the evidence of similar vocabulary in Philo and Josephus, who are Jewish authors from the First Century AD, the present scholarly consensus is that, whether we agree with the New Testament or not, Paul rejected homosexuality in all of its forms as a violation of God’s moral order for our lives. See now C.E.B Cranfield, THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICAL COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS, vol. 1 (Edinburgh: T.&T. Clark 1975) pages 125-127; Douglas Moo, Romans (NEW INTERNATIONAL COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT; Eerdmans, 1996) pages 113-118; Leon Morris, ROMANS (Eerdmans 1988) 87-93. Especially convincing is, once again, the thorough re-examination of all the arguments pro and con offered by Robert A.J. Gagnon, in THE BIBLE AND HOMOSEXUAL PRACTICE (Abingdon Press, 2001).

4. The Old Testament prohibitions of homosexual acts are just as general as the New Testament prohibitions. They do not just condemn homosexual rape, or pederasty, or some other deviant behavior. Leviticus 18:22 says “Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” The language of this prohibition could not be more general. It includes both one-night stands and life-long committed affectionate sex. It does NOT, however, include a homosexual orientation. I want to stress this since, in my opinion, the issues for homosexuals and heterosexuals are really not so different. Each of us, because of our decadent culture and our own sinful proclivities, faces sexual temptation in an endless variety of guises, and this is just as true for married persons as it is for single persons. This is why the Bible has as much to say about adultery and lust as it does about premarital promiscuity. In the end, every one of us has to decide day by day, to Whom do we belong? No one has the right to tell you, me, or our homosexual neighbor what he or she should do with his or her body (unless, of course, it is to another’s detriment, as in the case of rape). But God made us, and Christ redeemed us, and now we belong to Him twice over. So He has every right to tell me that even things that might feel very natural and pleasurable to me (like pride and selfishness) in fact displease Him. If God’s Word seems to suggest this with respect to homosexual acts, while we need to go the extra mile to stress our love and respect for our homosexual brothers and sisters (and go the extra mile in protecting them from harassment, prejudice, discrimination in public housing, education, and employment, etc.), we need to be equally careful not to do them the unkindness of implying that the Bible is less clear than it is.

5. You are right that Jesus nowhere explicitly condemns homosexual practice, but this is hardly evidence that he approves of homosexual practice. After all, one could also point out that, as far as the gospel record allows us to know, Jesus never condemned wife abuse, embezzlement, cannibalism, or a host of other evils. What are we to make of this? Certainly not that he approves of these activities. Really the safest conclusion is that Jesus never bothered to deal with a long list of sins because he did not need to. They were already condemned very clearly, whether explicitly or by implication, in the Old Testament. The main issues that Jesus addressed were areas where the Jews of his day had twisted or misinterpreted the Old Testament, and they needed to be corrected. They thought, for example, that just because we are commanded to love our neighbor in Leviticus 19, this justifies us in hating our enemy. So Jesus corrects their misunderstanding. Otherwise, according to Jesus himself, his ethics are the EXACT same as the Old Testament. See the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5:17-20, where he makes this point.

6. Despite the lack of explicit teaching from Jesus on the topic of homosexual practice, I think we can safely infer that Jesus condemned it in any form. I say this based on the “law of excluded middle.” In Matthew 19:1-12 Jesus takes up the matter of marriage and sex. He reminds his contemporaries that God’s original plan for human beings was lifelong faithful marriage between a male and a female. Accordingly, Jesus condemns any who would break up “what God has joined together.” Furthermore, Jesus insists that there is no approved ground for a divorce apart from sexual infidelity (“fornication,” which includes willful desertion) on the part of one’s spouse. The disciples were astonished to hear this very strict position, since the conventional teaching of Jesus’ day was that a man could divorce his wife for virtually any cause, just so long as he followed the proper procedure (giving her a bill of divorce). In their shock the disciples exclaimed that if what Jesus was teaching is the case, it would be better to avoid marriage! Jesus surprises them again, perhaps, by affirming a life of singleness as a status that God approves, just like marriage. But what is notable for our discussion is that as far as Jesus is concerned, there is no THIRD option! One must either be chaste (“a eunuch... for the sake of the kingdom”) or one must be faithful in a heterosexual marriage (“male and female” “united to his wife”). Surely if Jesus wanted to affirm life-long committed homosexual unions, here is where he needed to do it because his own disciples were astonished at the radical and difficult requirements he seemed to set before them. But Jesus did not allow that third option.

7. Park Street Church is blessed with many wonderful Christians who are now or have been homosexual in the past. As you may know, we have a significant ministry to the homosexual and lesbian community, including our weekly support meeting called Alive in Christ. The fact is, some men and women who struggle in this area have come to our church from other churches because they decided they wanted to change. Strangely enough, although those other churches seemed welcoming to them when they identified themselves as homosexual, as soon as they wanted God’s help to change, they felt profoundly rejected and isolated. They were condemned, as if they were “homophobic,” and they were told “you can’t change,” or “you just have to accept the fact that this is the way you are!” I don’t understand how any church can say this since, after listing homosexuals, etc., Paul boldly declares, “And that is what some of you were” (1 Corinthians 6:11). What does it mean to be a new creature in Christ, if it does not mean that we can change in any way God wants? Besides, although there is almost a conspiracy of silence on this subject, it is only fair to acknowledge that even apart from Christian faith, the foremost sex researchers in the 1980’s, Masters and Johnson, reported in an article published in the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY that their five-year follow-up success rate for helping homosexuals change was 65 percent (“The Masters and Johnson Treatment Program for Dissatisfied Homosexual Men” in volume 41, pages 173-181). Similarly, A. Canton-Dutari reports in a study of homosexual patients who sought the help of therapists to change, sixty-one percent remained exclusively heterosexual after four years, and 10 percent had become celibate, engaging in neither homosexual nor heterosexual behavior (see “Combined Intervention for Controlling Unwanted Homosexual Behavior: An Extended Follow-Up,” in ARCHIVES OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR, volume 5:4, pages 269 - 274).

The result is that we have become a kind of refuge for many. In fact, we have a number of key leaders in our church who are quite open about the fact that they were once in the gay life (in some cases before their marriages–their testimonies of transformation are amazing), while others admit that they still feel temptation in this area, but they are committed to giving their lives of singleness to God (to be eunuchs for the kingdom, as Jesus put it). When I hear their stories and realize how much they honor the Lord every day by asking for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit to live a life that is pleasing to Him, I am proud to be in such a place, and I am challenged to do the same thing with my many sins (including materialism, pride, worry...). May their courageous example have a similar effect on many in this wonderful church.

8. Finally, although I probably don’t need to say this, I do want to emphasize that I do NOT consider homosexuality to be worse than any of the zillion sins I commit every day. In fact, it is tribute to the infinite grace and mercy of God that the sanctuary roof stays up each day that I walk into the room. In any case, we are not on some kind of crusade to single out those who may be dealing with this issue. Although I want the liberty to be honest with the Bible and to address this topic from time to time, I have no intention of so stressing it that the many homosexual guests and visitors who are not interested in changing will feel put off or unwelcome (or at least no more put off or unwelcome than the many materialists who are not yet interested in changing). On the other hand, I want to say enough so that those who are trying to surrender this part of their lives to Christ will be encouraged, and also so that the rest will not be misled by a culture that increasingly is allowing only one side of the discussion to be heard.

I hope that this is helpful. Thank you again for your honest comments and for being a part of our church family.

Yours in Christ,

Gordon Hugenberger

A Pregnant Man?

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t,” the famed literary character Alice quipped. “And contrary wise; what it is wouldn’t be, and what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

The aforementioned quote from Lewis Carroll’s children’s classic, “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” seems to be nonsense. But if you read it again slowly -– very slowly -– you will see that it adequately sums up the current state of sexual dysfunction in America.

Consider the recent sensational news headline, “Man becomes pregnant,” that reverberated around the world. Reading the story, it became very clear that everything was not quite as the outrageous headline made it seem.

The story indicated that an Oregon female-to-male transsexual was indeed pregnant. But how could this be? I thought that a person suffering from “gender identity” or “gender identity dysphoria” (belief that a person was born the wrong sex) underwent sex reassignment surgery in order to become the “correct” sex -– totally and completely. In the case of the Oregon transsexual, a woman underwent sex reassignment to become a “man.”

Here is where things get bizarre -– if they were not strange enough already. It seems that when the transsexual in question, who goes by the name “Thomas,” underwent sex reassignment surgery she did not go all the way. She kept her female sex organs intact because she had a life-long desire to have children.

Thomas became pregnant via artificial insemination, thanks to donated sperm.

To say Thomas is confused is an understatement. If she was convinced that she was born male, then why not go all the way with the surgery? In my opinion, the medical and mental health “professionals” that helped her in her so-called process are guilty, at the very least, of gross misconduct. I guess these days as long as the customer –- er, patient –- is “happy,” that’s all that matters.

How in the world did we get to the place that it is perfectly acceptable for a woman to undergo medical treatments so as to create the illusion she is physically a male -– but still retain the biological ability to become pregnant?

In 1973, after a few years of ominous threats, homosexual activists bullied the American Psychological Association into dropping homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. Once that occurred, a Pandora’s Box was opened that has led to every kind of sexual abnormality and practice being reclassified as normal. The result? Very little is deemed deviant anymore.

“The tragedy of transsexuals rests squarely with the psychiatric and medical communities who participate in the charade by legitimizing ‘gender identity’ disorders,” wrote Tammy Bruce in her book “The Death of Right and Wrong.” She continued, “It also sits squarely with the Gay Elite for creating a cultural environment that makes serious discussion and analysis of psychological problems politically incorrect.”

Ms. Bruce is absolutely correct.

A person who thinks that taking hormones and having surgery is somehow magically going to transform him or her into the opposite sex is in desperate need of intense counseling and prayer.

Commenting on the Oregon transsexuals’ pregnancy, Laurie Higgins, a teacher from Deerfield, Illinois, wrote on the Americans for Truth website: “Prior to my mother succumbing to cancer, she had had an oophorectomy, hysterectomy, and mastectomy. Following those surgeries she was no less a woman than I am.”

Ms. Higgins continued, “The presence in the pregnant woman of a desire to be a man, a clear symptom of a profound psychological disorder, and even the foolish legal accommodation of this symptom, renders this woman a man only in an illusory post-modern fantasy -- not in reality.

“That is to say,” Higgins concluded, “there exists no pregnant ‘man.’”

I couldn’t have said it any better.

Just an aside, can you imagine the conversation that will unfold when the child of the Oregon transsexual one days asks the questions, “Mom, dad, where did I come from?” I hope there is not, as I fear there could be, much confusion and years of counseling.

On a positive note, nine obstetricians would not participate in the transsexual pregnancy. It seems that are still some sane members of the medical community.

Alice’s imagined topsy-turvy world sadly describes the current state of American sexual dysfunction. But no matter how bizarre things might seem to be, rest assured a biological male is not pregnant.

Americans Split On If Homosexuality Is Sin

Jude 1:7

Americans hold differing opinions on the issue of homosexuality, including whether homosexual behavior is sinful. A similar percentage of Americans consider homosexual behavior sinful to those who do not, and neither view gains a majority, according to a new study by LifeWay Research. The study also found that Americans’ views of homosexuality affects their openness to participation in a church.

A telephone survey of 1,201 American adults conducted in April revealed that 48 percent of all Americans believe homosexual behavior is sinful, while 45 percent believe it is not sinful, almost a statistical tie when considering the margin of error.

The percentage is slightly different when the respondent indicates he or she knows someone with same-sex attraction, with 49 percent indicating it is not sinful. Among those who have a religious affiliation, 55 percent of Catholics and 31 percent of Protestants said they do not believe homosexual behavior is sinful. That number dropped to 17 percent among born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants.

Holding opposing views, 39 percent of Catholics, 61 percent of Protestants and 79 percent of born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants said they do believe homosexual behavior is sinful.

Twenty-nine percent of Americans said their decision to visit or join a church would be positively affected if that congregation taught homosexual behavior is a sin. Among Catholics, that number dropped to 23 percent. Thirty-eight percent of Protestants and 50 percent of born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants said they would be more likely to visit or join a church if it taught homosexual behavior is sinful.

Thirty-two percent of Americans -– almost one in three -– said their decision to visit or join a church would be negatively affected if that congregation taught homosexual behavior is sinful. Among Catholics and Protestants, that number is 27 percent. It dropped further to 21 percent among born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants. Among those who never attend any place of worship, 49 percent said this teaching would negatively affect their decision to visit or join a church.

Those statistics should give church leaders pause and lead them to strike an important but delicate balance between demonstrating Christ’s love for all people while still presenting a biblical teaching about homosexual behavior, LifeWay Research director Ed Stetzer said.

“It’s surprising to see how many Catholics disagree with the clear teaching of their church or, for that matter, the percentage of Protestants who consider themselves born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist who do not believe homosexuality is a sin,” Stetzer said. “Seventeen percent in that latter category may seem low compared to the others, but considering these people consider themselves born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist, it reminds us of the need for clear biblical teaching on the issue in our community.”

The trajectory in Western culture is toward greater acceptance of homosexuality, Stetzer noted, but evangelical Christians cannot base their convictions about homosexuality on what polls say or the values portrayed in the media.

“We did not develop our views of sexuality because we flipped a coin or took a poll,” he said. “We believe the teaching of Scripture is clear that monogamous, heterosexual marriage is God’s best for people, culture and society.”

Stetzer also pointed to the challenge in the data. “Almost a third of Americans and almost half of those who do not attend a place of worship –- the people we are trying to reach -– say our view of sexual morality would negatively impact their decision to visit our churches,” Stetzer said. “It’s clear we have a challenging but essential task. We need to strive to show the love of Christ, while upholding the standard of Scripture, to those who struggle with same-sex attraction.”

The survey also asked participants which factors they thought contributed to same-sex attraction and gave them six options: choice, determined at birth (inevitable), influenced at birth (but not inevitable), childhood abuse, lack of bonding with parent and lack of same-sex parent role modeling.

Among the sample of all Americans, 51 percent selected choice. Fifty-three percent of Catholics and Protestants and 60 percent of born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants picked that option.

Among the sample of all Americans, 38 percent said same-sex attraction was determined at birth, while 47 percent of Catholics, 33 percent of Protestants and 25 percent of born-again, evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants selected that option. About one-quarter of adult Americans indicated that childhood abuse, lack of same-sex parent role modeling, lack of bonding with parent and influence at birth were contributing factors to same-sex attraction.

According to the survey, 66 percent of Americans are personally acquainted with someone who is attracted to people of the same sex. That percentage held among Protestants and 68 percent of Catholics answered in the affirmative.

The size of the survey sample provided a 95 percent confidence that the sampling error did not exceed 2.9 percent for questions asked of the entire sample. More detailed breakdowns of the data, as well as responses to questions not included in this report, may be found at lifewayresearch.com.

Did God Create Ray Boltz Gay?

1 Chronicles 12:32

Did God create Ray Boltz homosexual? Columnist Bob Stith takes a look at that question.

________

“If this is the way God made me, then this is the way I’m going to live,” Christian singer Ray Boltz said in a recent article disclosing his decision to divorce his wife and live as a homosexual.

But did God really create Ray Boltz as a homosexual? The media certainly would have us think so.

Time recently ran an article (“What the Gay Brain Looks Like,” Jun. 17, 2008) attempting to demonstrate the “science” supporting a “gay gene.” Interestingly, the article referenced a study done by Simon LeVay in 1991. The study had major gaps in its methodology, and even LeVay, a homosexual neuroscientist, has said that it didn’t prove what he hoped it would.

An article such as this demonstrates the difficulty of speaking truth into our culture today. Studies attempting to normalize homosexual behavior are introduced with much fanfare, and we hear about “important” new discoveries that are accepted as facts. We don’t hear, however, about the scientists who strongly disagree and the studies that reach a different conclusion.

For example, in 2003, the International Human Genome Consortium announced the successful completion of the Human Genome Project, which, among other things, identified each of the approximately 20,000-25,000 genes in human DNA. The press release read: “The human genome is complete and the Human Genome Project is over.”

While this accomplishment was widely reported, almost no one reported the words of Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the project. Collins, arguably the nation’s most influential geneticist, said, “Homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.”

Somehow the major media missed that little tidbit. Collins and others acknowledge that genetics can predispose but not predetermine. This supports other studies that clearly document the possibility of change for people who struggle with unwanted homosexual desire.

The need for Christians to be prepared to deal with this issue is shown in another comment by Boltz: “I guess I felt that the church, that they had it wrong about how I felt with being gay all these years, so maybe they had it wrong about a lot of other things.”

Notice the emphasis on “how I felt.” Far too often we allow “feelings” and the validity of each person’s “story” to trump the authority of Scripture. In Boltz’s case, his struggle with homosexuality apparently caused him to doubt other tenets of the faith. Beliefs to which he had held all his life were reconsidered. This is not uncommon among strugglers from Christian backgrounds. When we fail to help them deal with this issue, other fundamental beliefs are questioned.

Another sad byproduct is that his former wife has joined a pro-gay advocacy group. I’ve often thought that many people turn to various pro-gay groups because the church was not there at the time of their crisis. The end result is that not only is the struggler lost, but family members as well. Tragically, they often become very effective instruments in the hands of homosexual activists.

I grieve for the loss of the testimony of Ray Boltz. I grieve for those who will follow his example. I grieve for his family. I pray that one day Ray will realize that God did not create him a homosexual and that there is a way out.

We are in desperate need of children of Issachar, who understand the times and know what to do (1 Chronicles 12:32). Far too many in Southern Baptist churches are struggling with a temptation they neither seek nor understand, but they are terrified to ask for help. Ray Boltz said, “I read every book, I read all the scriptures they use, I did everything to try and change.” Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) tells us that people can leave homosexuality.

Those with long experience in this ministry will tell you that very few people have left homosexuality without the support and involvement of others. But the fear of being found out keeps many in bondage, and that bondage is intensified when the world continually trumpets, “You’re born that way. Just accept it.”

I pray for the day when all of our churches take seriously the need to train their leadership to redemptively provide the tools needed for the people like Ray Boltz in their midst. I long for the day when every community has Christians who are prepared to present a positive, joy-filled alternative to the lifelong struggle he has endured.

Are your church and your community prepared? Are you?

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Bob Stith is the SBC’s National Strategist for Gender Issues.

Newsweek Turns the Bible On Its Head

Jude 1:7

Newsweek magazine, one of the most influential news magazines in America, has decided to come out for “same-sex marriage” in a big way, and to do so by means of a biblical and theological argument. In its latest cover story, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage,” Newsweek religion editor Lisa Miller offers a revisionist argument for the acceptance of “same-sex marriage.” It is fair to say that Newsweek has gone for broke on this question.

Miller begins with a lengthy dismissal of the Bible’s relevance to the question of marriage in the first place. “Let’s try for a minute to take the religious conservatives at their word and define marriage as the Bible does,” Miller suggests. If so, she argues that readers will find a confusion of polygamy, strange marital practices and worse.

She concludes: “Would any contemporary heterosexual married couple –- who likely woke up on their wedding day harboring some optimistic and newfangled ideas about gender equality and romantic love –- turn to the Bible as a how-to script?” She answers, “Of course not, yet the religious opponents of gay marriage would have it be so.”

Now, wait just a minute. Miller’s broadside attack on the biblical teachings on marriage goes to the heart of what will appear as her argument for “same-sex marriage.” She argues that, in the Old Testament, “examples of what social conservatives call ‘the traditional family’ are scarcely to be found.” This is true, of course, if what you mean by ‘traditional family’ is the picture of America in the 1950s. The Old Testament notion of the family starts with the idea that the family is the carrier of covenant promises, and this family is defined, from the onset, as a transgenerational extended family of kin and kindred.

But, at the center of this extended family stands the institution of marriage as the most basic human model of covenantal love and commitment. And this notion of marriage, deeply rooted in its procreative purpose, is unambiguously heterosexual.

As for the New Testament, “Ozzie and Harriet are nowhere” to be found. Miller argues that both Jesus and Paul were unmarried (emphatically true) and that Jesus “preached a radical kind of family, a caring community of believers, whose bond in God superseded all blood ties.” Jesus clearly did call for a commitment to the Gospel and to discipleship that transcended family commitments. Given the Jewish emphasis on family loyalty and commitment, this did represent a decisive break.

But Miller also claims that “while the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.” This is just patently untrue. Genesis 2:24-25 certainly reveals marriage to be, by the Creator’s intention, a union of one man and one woman. To offer just one example from the teaching of Jesus, Matthew 19:1-8 makes absolutely no sense unless marriage “between one man and one woman” is understood as normative.

As for Paul, he did indeed instruct the Corinthians that the unmarried state was advantageous for the spread of the Gospel. His concern in 1 Corinthians 7 is not to elevate singleness as a lifestyle, but to encourage as many as are able to give themselves totally to an unencumbered Gospel ministry. But, in Corinth and throughout the New Testament church, the vast majority of Christians were married. Paul himself will assume this when he writes the “household codes” included in other New Testament letters.

The real issue is not marriage, Miller suggests, but opposition to homosexuality. Surprisingly, Miller argues that this prejudice against same-sex relations is really about opposition to sex between men. She cites the “Anchor Bible Dictionary” as stating that “nowhere in the Bible do its authors refer to sex between women.” She would have done better to look to the Bible itself, where in Romans 1:26-27 Paul writes: “For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.”

Again, this passage makes absolutely no sense unless it refers very straightforwardly to same-sex relations among both men and women -- with the women mentioned first.

Miller dismisses the Levitical condemnations of homosexuality as useless because “our modern understanding of the world has surpassed its prescriptions.” But she saves her most creative dismissal for the Apostle Paul. Paul, she concedes, “was tough on homosexuality.” Nevertheless, she takes encouragement from the fact that “progressive scholars” have found a way to re-interpret the Pauline passages to refer only to homosexual violence and promiscuity.

In this light she cites author Neil Elliott and his book, “The Arrogance of Nations.” Elliott, like other “progressive scholars,” suggests that the modern notion of sexual orientation is simply missing from the biblical worldview. “Paul is not talking about what we call homosexuality at all,” as Miller quotes Elliott.

Of course, no honest reader of the biblical text will share this simplistic and backward conclusion. Furthermore, to accept this argument is to assume that the Christian church has misunderstood the Bible from its very birth -- and that we are now dependent upon contemporary “progressive scholars” to tell us what Christians throughout the centuries have missed.

Tellingly, Miller herself seems to lose confidence in this line of argument, explaining that “Paul argued more strenuously against divorce –- and at least half of the Christians in America disregard that teaching.” In other words, when the argument is failing, change the subject and just declare victory. “Religious objections to gay marriage are rooted not in the Bible at all, then, but in custom and tradition,” Miller simply asserts -- apparently asking her readers to forget everything they have just read.

Miller picks her sources carefully. She cites Neil Elliott but never balances his argument with credible arguments from another scholar, such as Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Robert Gagnon, who has posted online a critique of Elliott’s arguments. Her scholarly sources are chosen so that they all offer an uncorrected affirmation of her argument. The deck is decisively stacked.

She then moves to the claim that sexual orientation is “exactly the same thing” as skin color when it comes to discrimination. As recent events have suggested, this claim is not seen as credible by many who have suffered discrimination on the basis of skin color.

As always, the bottom line is biblical authority. Lisa Miller does not mince words. “Biblical literalists will disagree,” she allows, “but the Bible is a living document, powerful for more than 2,000 years because its truths speak to us even as we change through history.” This argument means, of course, that we get to decide which truths are and are not binding on us as “we change through history.”

“A mature view of scriptural authority requires us, as we have in the past, to move beyond literalism,” she asserts. “The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it’s impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours.”

All of this comes together when Miller writes, “We cannot look to the Bible as a marriage manual, but we can read it for universal truths as we struggle toward a more just future.” At this point the authority of the Bible is reduced to whatever “universal truths” we can distill from its (supposed) horrifyingly backward and oppressive texts.

Even as she attempts to make her “religious case” for “gay marriage,” Miller has to acknowledge that “very few Jewish or Christian denominations do officially endorse gay marriage, even in the states where it is legal.” Her argument now grinds to a conclusion with her hope that this will change. But -- and this is a crucial point -- if her argument had adequate traction, she wouldn’t have to make it. It is not a thin extreme of fundamentalist Christians who stand opposed to “same-sex marriage” -- it is the vast majority of Christian churches and denominations worldwide.

Disappointingly, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham offers an editorial note that broadens Newsweek’s responsibility for this atrocity of an article and reveals even more of the agenda: “No matter what one thinks about gay rights –- for, against or somewhere in between –- this conservative resort to biblical authority is the worst kind of fundamentalism,” Meacham writes. “Given the history of the making of the Scriptures and the millennia of critical attention scholars and others have given to the stories and injunctions that come to us in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament, to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt –- it is unserious, and unworthy of the great Judeo-Christian tradition.”

Well, that statement sets the issue clearly before us. He insists that “to argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt.” No serious student of the Bible can deny the challenge of responsible biblical interpretation, but the purpose of legitimate biblical interpretation is to determine, as faithfully as possible, what the Bible actually teaches -- and then to accept, teach, apply and obey.

The national news media are collectively embarrassed by the passage of Proposition 8 in California. Gay rights activists are publicly calling on the mainstream media to offer support for “gay marriage,” arguing that the media let them down in November. It appears that Newsweek intends to do its part. Many observers believe that the main obstacle to this agenda is a resolute opposition grounded in Christian conviction. Newsweek clearly intends to reduce that opposition.

Newsweek could have offered its readers a careful and balanced review of the crucial issues related to this question. It chose another path -- and published this cover story. The magazine’s readers and this controversial issue deserved better.

________

R. Albert Mohler Jr. is president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. This column first appeared at AlbertMohler.com.

Discriminating Christians: Are We Bible-Thumping Bigots?

Eight-year-old Martin Thompson couldn’t wait to join the Boy Scouts. From the flyers passed out at school, he’d read about all the fun Scouts have. But when Martin’s parents discovered his interest, they told him absolutely not. Their reaction shows just how successful the gay lobby has been convincing people that homosexuality has no moral component.

The Boy Scouts don’t accept members or leaders who engage in homosexual conduct — and that’s why Martin’s parents objected. “Our family does not agree with discrimination against … homosexuals,” Martin’s mother told him. The family then went to a meeting of the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, school district and tried to get the Scouts thrown off school property.

Martin’s father read a statement Martin had written, which said, “I don’t want the Boy Scouts to come to my school because my school allows everyone to come. … But … not everyone is allowed in the Boy Scouts.”

Of course, Martin’s school does not allow everyone to attend. It discriminates against people who are too old or too young, and against anyone who lives outside the school district.

Evidently, this type of discrimination doesn’t bother Martin’s parents. They probably view it as appropriate, because it violates no moral laws. But they’re evidently teaching their son that homosexual conduct violates no moral laws either — but that objecting to it does. They equate the upholding of biblical principles as code language for gay-bashing.

Many Christian families are having to confront this issue head on. Around the country, homosexual groups and their allies are lobbying to kick Boy Scouts out of public schools and parks. So it’s important that our kids understand Christian teaching on this subject.

First, we must teach them that Christian thinking about these questions begins and ends with the fact of God’s love. We love these people, but not their behavior. And God loves them. The real question is: Did God make homosexuals the way they are, or is their sexual preference a consequence of what makes our world a broken place?

Many secularists claim that homosexuality is genetically determined. But these claims ignore the empirical evidence to the contrary. Researchers looking for a gay gene periodically announce new evidence for it, and then that evidence evaporates when other researchers study it.

So if homosexuality is not genetically determined, then to some degree the behavior involves an element of choice. That doesn’t mean that some people don’t have a predisposition to homosexuality: they do, just as straight people have pre-dispositions that they themselves must control.

David Persing, a molecular genetics researcher and a Christian, says the biblical teaching that all of nature is fallen includes our genetic heritage. As a result, we all have inborn tendencies toward various forms of sinful behaviors, from alcoholism to heterosexual addiction to homosexuality.

But this fact does not excuse us from having to make a choice to do right or to sin. Christianity calls all of us to struggle against our natural tendencies. Whatever those inclinations are, we still have room for making real moral choices.

And that’s what we have to teach our kids when they’re accused of anti-gay bigotry.

Ex-Gay Ministry Has 53 Percent Success Rate

In findings that directly contradict mainstream academic thought, 53 percent of subjects in a new seven-year study reported successfully leaving homosexuality and living happily as heterosexual or celibate persons.

The study by psychologists Stanton L. Jones of Wheaton College and Mark A. Yarhouse of Regent University is a follow-up to one released two years ago in the form of a book, “Ex-Gays?” That study was called groundbreaking, and the latest set of data is no less significant, the researchers say.

The men followed 61 subjects over a span of six to seven years, recording their failures and successes in their attempt to leave homosexuality. Experts in the field call it the first attempt to follow subjects who are undergoing Christian counseling over a series of years. Such a time-consuming study is called “longitudinal.”

Among their findings:

• 23 percent reported a successful conversion to heterosexual attractions.

• 30 percent reported living a celibate life and were content with their reduction in homosexual attractions. Altogether, those latter two categories were combined for a 53 percent success rate, the researchers said.

• 16 percent of subjects had modest decreases in homosexual attractions and weren’t satisfied with their degree of change but were committed to continuing the process.

• 7 percent had seen no decrease in homosexual attractions but had not given up trying to change.

• 25 percent of subjects were considered “failures,” either because they gave up on the process and once again identified as a homosexual (20 percent) or because they had not yet embraced a homosexual identity but nevertheless had given up (5 percent).

All the subjects were going through programs set up by Exodus International, a Christian ministry that seeks to help those who want to leave homosexuality. Although Exodus funded the study, Jones and Yarhouse agreed to conduct it only if all sides agreed that they would report the results no matter the outcome -- in other words, even if the findings embarrassed Exodus.

The latest findings were released four days after an American Psychological Association task force released a 130-page report that said “gay-to-straight” therapies are unlikely to work. That report got mixed reviews from conservatives, although APA’s position on the issue is well-known: It believes homosexual attractions are “normal and positive variants” of human sexuality. The APA’s website still states, “[T]here has been no scientifically adequate research to show that therapy aimed at changing sexual orientation (sometimes called reparative or conversion therapy) is safe or effective.”

“The APA has previously asserted, with absolute clarity, that sexual orientation change is not possible -- that it simply doesn’t occur,” Jones, of Wheaton College, told Baptist Press. “The best way to test that is to study people as they’re attempting change and follow them over a long period of time. Our study found that a significant portion of that population reported very significant change.”

He added, “My sense is that our study is a good sample, and so I think that people can pursue the Exodus process with a cautious sense of optimism about the possibility of change, but we can’t make absolute predictions.”

A Homosexual At Wheaton College

John 14:15

Christians extol marriage and close human relationships, but often we put too much emphasis on those bonds. We communicate that if you don’t find the right person you will never be happy, never be truly fulfilled. Biblically speaking, this is not really the case. What people need is a genuine relationship with God.

This was brought to my mind by an article in Christianity Today magazine.

It was about a student at my alma mater, Wheaton College. It is considered America’s premier Christian college and is very conservative - and expensive. Like many other Wheaton students, Tyler Streckert grew up in a conservative Christian home. But from an early age he realized there was something different about him, something he couldn’t talk about.

On an afternoon in April of 2013, he posted a piece of paper on Wheaton’s communal forum board. It is sort of a noteboard for the whole college. Tyler’s note said he was a male who was attracted to other males, and he struggled with anxiety and depression. He had prayed to be changed to straight, but it hadn’t happened after eight years. He said he still loved God, and wanted to be open and honest with everyone.

Tyler wasn’t sure what to expect from his note, but he soon found out. Every response was positive. No one expressed hate. He was rather surprised by this. Even a very conservative professor reached out and Tyler said it was a wonderful witness to Jesus’ love and mercy.

Tyler has made a commitment to be celibate. He knows the Bible condemns the practice of homosexuality. But the Bible, in Genesis 2:18, also says it is not good for anyone to be alone, and he knows he needs love and connection to other humans like everyone else. He wants a genuine connection with Christians and a true love for God.

Everyone wants to bond with other humans. But Tyler also has what Mary Magdalene had - a relationship with Jesus that transcends human marriage and friendship.

________

Adapted by David Holwick from the article "Coming Out at Wheaton College," by Tyler Streckert, Christianity Today, June 2016, p. 63.

Diagnosing Dissenters: Is Homophobia A Disorder?

If you think homosexual behavior is wrong, new research says you might not be right in the head.

This summer, the Supreme Court narrowly redefined marriage and handed the gay-rights movement a major victory: full “equality” and recognition by the government. With that box checked, the gay-rights movement can now focus on its ultimate goal: silencing those who disagree.

One new and troubling strategy has emerged from the scientific community. Instead of vilifying those who believe in natural marriage, suggest some researchers, we should diagnose them.

It’s an ironic reversal. Years ago, homosexuality was listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s manual of disorders. But in 1986 it was removed, followed by a concerted push from Association members to normalize homosexual behavior.

In just thirty years, America went from a country where homosexuality was a diagnosable disorder to one where you can be fined for refusing to bake a gay “wedding” cake. Now things are going a step further. New research published in “The Journal of Sexual Medicine” suggests that homophobia, not homosexuality, is the psychological disorder.

“Live Science” reports that researchers at the University of Rome Tor Vergata asked 560 university students to report their feelings about homosexuality, then gave them a standard psychiatric evaluation.

Participants who exhibited what the researchers called “healthy attachment styles” tended to show less animosity toward homosexuals. They also showed more “mature coping mechanisms” in “scary or unpleasant situations,” and were generally less angry. But those who showed the highest animosity toward homosexuals exhibited a host of warning signs like inability to trust others, passive-aggressive behavior, and denial.

Lead researcher Emmanuele Jannini concluded, “After discussing for centuries if homosexuality is to be considered a disease, for the first time we demonstrated that the real disease to be cured is homophobia.”

Well, this was red meat for progressive websites and news outlets, who gladly trumpeted the results.

I can’t help but think of C. S. Lewis’ chilling and prophetic essay, “The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.” Lewis believed that persecution in the future would look less like jack-booted thuggery, and more like therapy: “ ... certain schools of psychology already regard religion as a neurosis,” he wrote. “When this particular neurosis becomes inconvenient to the government, what is to hinder the government from proceeding to ‘cure’ it,” with mandatory re-education or other forms of treatment?

Jannini’s willingness to label homophobia as “the real disease to be cured” shows just how quickly we’re moving down this path. But we can respond: First, there are a lot of problems with how this study is being analyzed, even by its authors. For example, should it surprise us that those who show animosity toward people in general also show animosity toward gay people? Bad psychological traits probably don’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation.

Secondly, and more importantly, a “phobia” is “an irrational and debilitating fear” of something, and Christians don’t feel this way about those who identify as gay, or they certainly shouldn’t. Ours is a rational stance based on human flourishing and God’s created order, not “irrational animus.” It’s entirely possible to object to sin, refuse to dignify it, and still love those caught up in it. In fact, that’s what Jesus commanded us to do.

So no, we don’t need a checkup from the neck up for believing what Christians have always believed. And no matter how crazy it sounds to some folks, we have got to point out the true disease, and the only cure.

Resources

Humanitarian Theory of Punishment

C. S. Lewis

Homophobic People Often Have Psychological Issues

Stephanie Pappas | Live Science | September 11, 2015

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Sanctifying the Sin of Sodomy

by Keith Malcomson

Keith Malcomson's sermon addresses the biblical stance on homosexuality, emphasizing the need for repentance and the transformative power of Christ's salvation.

Confronting the Homosexual Agenda 1:10:02

by Michael L. Brown

We must be changed before we can change the world, and we must be holy and pure to be a prophetic voice to our society.

Homosexuality and Scripture 1:08:13

by Peet Botha

The Bible teaches that homosexual conduct is sin, based on passages such as Romans 1:18-32, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, and 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.

Fully Alive & Same-Sex Attraction: The Call to the First Identity 48:56

by Stewart Ruch

The sermon emphasizes the importance of living under the authority of God's Word and rejecting the lie that we are alone, in order to find true identity and freedom in Christ.

Pilgrims Problems No. 1 Homosexuality 45:10

by Willie Mullan

Willie Mullan addresses the biblical perspective on homosexuality, emphasizing the consequences of rejecting God's truth.

Pilgrims Problems No. 2 Homosexuality 45:11

by Willie Mullan

The sermon addresses the biblical perspective on homosexuality and God's judgment, emphasizing the need for repentance and adherence to scripture.

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